Highlight Area in Data Visualization for Emphasis - Please Help!

[Anonymous]

In the simple visualization below, I am hoping to emphasize a portion of the timeline, the last 3 months for instance, to emphasize a specific time period of focus, but also connecting the relevancy to earlier months.

So for instance, October through June may be a subtle color, while July - September would be emphasized with an alternative (brighter) color.

Anybody have a recommendation how to do this from a technique perspective?  I am looking for a solution that can create the contrasting colors as the data changes...i.e. Highlight the last 3 mos, as opposed to highlight Jul, Aug, Sept if a conditional formatting is the recommended approach.

Thanks in advance.

[sturlaws · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

one approach would be to create to different measures and have them both in the same chart. 

As the DATEADD-function only accepts columns as input, I prefer to create a year-month number in my date table like this:

YearMonthNumber =
 ( YEAR ( Date[Date] ) - 2016 ) * 12
    + MONTH ( Date[Date] )

Your last 3 months-measure would when then look like this

Last 3 months =
VAR currentYearMontNumber =
    ( YEAR ( TODAY () ) - 2016 ) * 12
        + MONTH ( TODAY () )
RETURN
    CALCULATE (
        SUM ( 'Sales table'[Sales] );
        FILTER ( 'Date'; 'Date'[YearMonthNumber] > currentYearMontNumber - 3 )
    )

and the other months like this:

Other months = 
VAR currentYearMontNumber =
    ( YEAR ( TODAY () ) - 2016 ) * 12
        + MONTH ( TODAY () )
RETURN
    CALCULATE (
        SUM ( 'Sales table'[Sales] );
        FILTER ( 'Date'; 'Date'[YearMonthNumber] <= currentYearMontNumber - 3 )
    )

Then add both measures to a chart and it will  look somethink like this

example 

Cheers,
Sturla

If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution. Kudos are nice too.