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GilesWalker's avatar
GilesWalker
Skilled Sharer
10 years ago
Solved

Plotting times on a graph

Hi Everyone,

 

I have a dataset with a column containing the date and time. I have changed the format to show the data as HH:MM. I am trying to plot this on a line graph visual, however I cant seem to get it to do it correctly. The graph wont read the data as time and will only give the values as a COUNT. 

 

I need the graph to show the date on the X axis, the time on the Y axis and then the values will be the data in the column (arrival time).

 

I have tried a bunch of different things but can get it to work, hope you can help.

 

Thanks,

 

Giles

 

 

Need Help
  • mike_honey's avatar
    mike_honey
    10 years ago

    Starting from a single Date column, I would follow these steps:

    1. Using Power Bi Designer: Home / Edit Queries / select your Query
    2. Add a "Date" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Date / Date only
    3. Add an "Hour" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Time / Hour
    4. Add an "Minute" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Time / Minute
    5. calculate a "Hour Decimal" column in the Query Layer - Add Column / Add Custom Column / Hour Decimal = [Hour] + ( [Minute] / 60 ). So 3:15pm would become 15.25.
    6. Set the data type of the new "Hour Decimal" column  - Home / Data Type: Decimal Number
    7. Close & Apply
    8. Navigate to Data view, choose your table, choose the "Hour Decimal" column, navigate to Modeling and set Default Summarization: Minimum (depends on your requirements - this will show the first Time for each Day. You can customize this for each Visual).
    9. Navigate to the Report view, select your Line graph Visual, set the Axis to be the new "Date" field, and the Value to the new "Hour Decimal" field.

    Now the Y-axis shows the Time portion of each date, from 0 - 24.

     

    While figuring this out, I've built a working solution which you can download from my OneDrive and try out:

     

    http://1drv.ms/1AzPAZp

     

    It's the file: Power BI demo - Line chart of date vs time.pibx

     

    The data is a random sample but hopefully it helps show the steps.

5 Replies

  • mike_honey's avatar
    mike_honey
    Memorable Member
    10 years ago

    Starting from a single Date column, I would follow these steps:

    1. Using Power Bi Designer: Home / Edit Queries / select your Query
    2. Add a "Date" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Date / Date only
    3. Add an "Hour" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Time / Hour
    4. Add an "Minute" column - select your Date column, Add Column / Time / Minute
    5. calculate a "Hour Decimal" column in the Query Layer - Add Column / Add Custom Column / Hour Decimal = [Hour] + ( [Minute] / 60 ). So 3:15pm would become 15.25.
    6. Set the data type of the new "Hour Decimal" column  - Home / Data Type: Decimal Number
    7. Close & Apply
    8. Navigate to Data view, choose your table, choose the "Hour Decimal" column, navigate to Modeling and set Default Summarization: Minimum (depends on your requirements - this will show the first Time for each Day. You can customize this for each Visual).
    9. Navigate to the Report view, select your Line graph Visual, set the Axis to be the new "Date" field, and the Value to the new "Hour Decimal" field.

    Now the Y-axis shows the Time portion of each date, from 0 - 24.

     

    While figuring this out, I've built a working solution which you can download from my OneDrive and try out:

     

    http://1drv.ms/1AzPAZp

     

    It's the file: Power BI demo - Line chart of date vs time.pibx

     

    The data is a random sample but hopefully it helps show the steps.

    • GilesWalker's avatar
      GilesWalker
      Skilled Sharer
      10 years ago

      Thanks mike_honey that worked perfectly. The write up was clear and the example you provided helped a lot.

       

      Giles

    • tmandou's avatar
      tmandou
      New Member
      9 years ago

      Thank you.  This is really useful and I managed to create a Scatter Chart showing how carbo hydrate intake is spread over the day! 

       

      Thanks a lot for this useful information!

  • WillT's avatar
    WillT
    Community Admin
    10 years ago

    Hi Giles. I'm not sure I follow you exactly. Your data is formatted something like this, right?

    Date      Time

    1/1/2016  12:34

    1/2/2016  10:15

    1/3/2016  19:25

     

    And you want to show a line graph with dates along the X axis. Are you asking for the time to determine the height the line appears on the Y axis? So with my sample data, the value for 1/1 would be 12:34, 1/2 would be 10:15 etc? At the moment there's no automatic way to get Power BI to display time as Y-axis values, but you could convert the time values to a number and put that into the 'Values' box in the field well. You can convert it to the number of minutes past midnight by:

    = HOUR([Time])*60 + MINUTE([Time])

     

    Does that help? Maybe I've misunderstood your question...

  • SrujanaNeelam's avatar
    SrujanaNeelam
    New Member
    9 years ago

    I have a similar Issue. I have data with two colums and I want simple XY scatter plot. I want  date on axis and 96 times stamps(24 hour with 15 min interval on Y axis).Two months date on x -axis and 96 time stamps on Y axis.Just need XY scatter plot as in Excel.I tried but with no luck in p.ower BI.Everytime I am trying to drag date and time am I getting only the aggregation.Its very important requirement for us.Appreciate help.Thank You