Waterfall charts in Power BI - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Waterfall charts

Business Question

How do different factors contribute to the change in total sales from the start to the end of the year?

Sample Data

Category	Amount
Starting Sales	100000
New Customers	25000
Lost Customers	-15000
Price Increase	10000
Discounts	-5000
Ending Sales	115000

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales Increase
  Formula: Total Sales Increase = CALCULATE(SUM('SalesData'[Amount]), NOT('SalesData'[Category] IN {"Starting Sales", "Ending Sales"}))
  Result: 15000
• Waterfall Chart: Sales Change Breakdown
  Data: Categories and Amounts from the table
  Visual: Waterfall chart showing each category's positive or negative contribution starting from Starting Sales to Ending Sales
• Table: Detailed Sales Contributions
  Shows Category and Amount columns for clarity

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+-----------------------+
|      KPI Card        |    Waterfall Chart     |
|  Total Sales Increase|  Sales Change Breakdown|
|        15,000        |                       |
+----------------------+-----------------------+
|                  Detailed Sales Contributions Table             |
|                          (Category and Amount)                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
  

Interactivity

A slicer filter on Category allows users to select which factors to include in the waterfall chart and table. When a category is unchecked, the waterfall chart and table update to reflect only the selected categories, and the KPI card recalculates the total sales increase accordingly.

Self Check

Add a filter to exclude the Discounts category. Which components update and how?

• The Waterfall Chart updates to remove the Discounts bar, showing a smaller negative impact.
• The Detailed Table no longer shows Discounts.
• The KPI Card recalculates the total sales increase, which will be higher because the negative Discounts amount is excluded.

Key Result

A dashboard showing how different sales factors contribute to total sales change using a waterfall chart, KPI card, and detailed table.