Join us at FabCon Atlanta from March 16 - 20, 2026, for the ultimate Fabric, Power BI, AI and SQL community-led event. Save $200 with code FABCOMM.
Register now!The Power BI Data Visualization World Championships is back! Get ahead of the game and start preparing now! Learn more
Hi,
I've got a dataset where the date fields are 'Year' and 'Quarter'.
I merge the two columns to have a "YYYY / QX" format.
But when I want to use this field as a date axis, the order is inconsistent.
I tried to convert it to text format, '2010/Q1' is before '2020/Q2' but the order is still the same.
Is there a Standard Date Format for Quarter/Year? Is there another method?
Solved! Go to Solution.
You need to use the "Sort by column" feature in Power BI to sort your "Year Quarter" column by another one.
Create another column containing your year and quarter in the format YYYYQ (e.g. 20203 for the third quarter of 2020) as a number data type. This column can, later on, be hidden in the model and will only be used to sort the "Year Quarter" column
When selecting the column you want to sort, the Column tools tab appears in the ribbon.
Click on Sort by column and select the numeric column you created in the format YYYYQ.
Hope that helps. Let us know.
David
You need to use the "Sort by column" feature in Power BI to sort your "Year Quarter" column by another one.
Create another column containing your year and quarter in the format YYYYQ (e.g. 20203 for the third quarter of 2020) as a number data type. This column can, later on, be hidden in the model and will only be used to sort the "Year Quarter" column
When selecting the column you want to sort, the Column tools tab appears in the ribbon.
Click on Sort by column and select the numeric column you created in the format YYYYQ.
Hope that helps. Let us know.
David
Even alphanumerical these fields should be ordered.
Check you order settings in the visual. Most likely the setting is order by the (Y-axis) values.
The Power BI Data Visualization World Championships is back! Get ahead of the game and start preparing now!
Check out the November 2025 Power BI update to learn about new features.
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 59 | |
| 43 | |
| 42 | |
| 23 | |
| 17 |
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 190 | |
| 122 | |
| 96 | |
| 66 | |
| 47 |