Confirming a suspicion about line charts in PBI

[jschwabish]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to using PBI and am very excited about what appears to be a very active community group. 

I was hoping someone could confirm a suspicion I have about creating a simple line chart in PBI. Let's say I have three columns, one with month (let's say in integers for the moment), one with year (e.g., two years), and the 3rd with some data values for each year-month combination. If I want to plot the time series in a line chart with all 24 values, I need to convert the year-month columns to a single DATE variable, correct? I can't simply create a line chart with 24 values as I would in Excel, right?

Thanks! 

[greggyb]

You cannot combine fields as axis labels in a line chart.

Thus you'd end up with a line with one point per year of data when using year as the axis label, and with 12 points (one per grouped month value) when using month as the axis label.

You do need to create a new field that is distinct for year-month combinations. This does not necessarily have to be a date field unless you want it to be. I utilize a field with the date format of "yyyy mmm" (four digit year, space, three character month abbreviation) as my axis label in situations like this. You'll need to have a field to sort by otherwise your months will be sorted alphabetically within a given year.