topic Re: Graph months in wrong order in DAX Commands and Tips

Graph months in wrong order

JamesGordon — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 13:59:47 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to create a graph of YTD sales. The tricky part is our year starts on the 1st of October - if i plot the graph it show January 2020 as the first bar instead of October 2019? I am using the date heirachy as on the X-axis also? The date format is DD/MM/YYYY if that is required also?

Can anyone point me in the right direction so the graph starts with Oct 2019, Dec 2019, Jan 2020, Feb 2020 etc etc?

Re: Graph months in wrong order

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:03:14 GMT

Hi JamesGordon ,

You'll want to format your field as the whole date rather than the date hierarchy.

From there, you can format the date field to just be Month name, Year or even Month name and it'll work sequentially.

- Paul

Re: Graph months in wrong order

JamesGordon — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:13:28 GMT

Thanks Paul,

I have chosen to display by Date instead of hierarchy so all in the correct order now- thank you!

I cant see any option to format the date field to just be Month name? I have looked in the format tab as highligted below - or am i looking in the wrong area?

Re: Graph months in wrong order

Greg_Deckler — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:16:50 GMT

Sounds like you need a Sort By column for your Month Date.

Re: Graph months in wrong order

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:34:49 GMT

JamesGordon

Thinking about it some more, why not just include the year in your original visual (with the full date hierarchy)? If you're doing a YTD calculation, you could always just drop months that =0 or only show the last 12 months.

Re: Graph months in wrong order

JamesGordon — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:40:04 GMT

Hi Paul,

This is what the graph produces if i choose year and month - doesnt appear to break it down any further unless i select only "month" but then it arranges the month in the order as per my orginal post?

Re: Graph months in wrong order

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:42:38 GMT

Ah, so if you click on your visual as is, there is the "Expand" button in the tooltips (upper right-hand corner). It looks like an upside down fieldgoal. Click that and then you'll see the additional details.

Re: Graph months in wrong order

JamesGordon — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:45:52 GMT

Ah ha, that worked - Thank you!

As a side note - would you know how to calculate these sales to prodice a cumulative month to month graph also?

Re: Graph months in wrong order

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 14:48:20 GMT

Haha, no worries!

Yeah, you want to have a calculated column where it sums all values less than or equal to the current date. You could even set a "start" point if you only ever wanted the last rolling 12.

Here's another solution that does that.

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Cumulative-Total/td-p/43115