Line chart scroll aligned right

[FatBlackCat30]

Hello all,

I have a line and stacked column chart with 3 years of data in it. The problem is the latest date (2017) is showing all the way to the left and the scroll automatically starts at the left. is there a way to have the scroll to start at the right with the most recent data?

thank you!!

[LauBul]

The easiest work-around I've found is just to reverse the order on the x-axis:
- Go to 'More Options' on each visual's header

- Scroll over Sort Axis

- Click the axis you want to reverse the order of

Of course, users would rather have the dates go from oldest (on left) to newest (on right). Thanks @Frith for the link to vote on the issue!

[MFelix · Accepted solution]

Hi @FatBlackCat30 ,

You cannot change the default scroll setup.

Has a workaround you can decrease the size of the bars and the space between them so they are closer and have more information visible, increase the size of the visual or change the sorting order of the axis.

[Clinical_Epi]

Hang on a second... so the one thing people rely on in charts for decades on computers - ie: having the line bar selector at the bottom of the page start from the right hand side of a chart that exceeds the dimensions of itself is not an option?

Lets just throw all convention out the window why dont we?

Make the data (whether it be months or what ever on the Y axis) smaller deafeats the purpose of a drill down which expans the graph beyond its boundaries making you HAVE to scroll to the most recent data every time you refresh the page... No bookmarks or tricks will work this one out - it has to be added as a function by the software developers Microsoft.

Very annoying and a big red mark against Power Bi (which I love btw)...

[MFelix]

Hi @Clinical_Epi ,

I understand what you are saying and may agree with you that these type of adjustments to the visualizations is needed.

However and please don't see this as being disrespectufull, it's not throwing all the conventions out of the window, in my case while working with a lot of visualizations from Excel, Tableau and Power BI (among others) , some as creator and some as read only I have learn in the last years that having more information in a single visualization is not necessarily good, if you cannot take the main message from the values you are seeing imediatly maybe something needs to be change.

Again this is my personal perspective and in no means I'm deprecating your opinion.

The work around can be to create inverse the timeline order (also not logical), don't know the correct because sometimes things come from a full perpspective of your reports and it can totally make sense to have a line chart.

You can also check if there is an idea on the forum part for ideas.

Just getting some open discussion about what are the alternatives, but if you make the idea on the forum please tell me and I will be the first one to mark as needed 🙂

[Frith]

Hey @MFelix , there is already an idea that needs more votes: 

Microsoft Idea  · Set default x axis scrolling position (powerbi.com)

Anyhow I fully agree with @Clinical_Epi. It is really some kind of shame that this must be pushed via an idea and was not implemented from the very beginning. I use a text format (monthname-year) that is also common but not provided as a date format and so it is even not possible to reorder the x-axis because it is not an option for text formats...

[Clinical_Epi]

Thank you Frith for the link I will check it out and vote. Any BI tool should have this built in, but most people dont seem to get how important this capability is in certain settings... 

[MFelix]

Hi @Frith ,

Thank you for the message I will vote in.

Concerning the second part of your message is possible to have a Montname-year by custom formatting:

Or adding a new column with:

FORMAT( Table[Date], "mmm-yyyy")

You also need to add a sort column using the following code:

FORMAT(Table[Date], "yyyymm")

Now the values will be correct on your chart.

[Clinical_Epi]

Hi MFelix,

Yes thats a good option - however a useful feature is to be able to drill down/up. Lets hope that Microsoft put more functions into their charts, as I find so many formatting issues could be resolved by programming in the BI tool itself, as are present in other BI tools.

We run huge dashbaords with Health data that needs to have many filters, but find developers move away from customary chart defaults (2x3 x/y standard format to a 10x2 x/y format!). I've also had to overlay charts to get the features built in that our users want.... not good 🙂

Thanks for updating this thread btw . 

The solution (for what its worth) that I've started using in most of my charts, as users need Year to month to day drill up/down in the charts, that also have lines and bars that users can add/remove using a switch/filter, is to use the full date hierarchy and turn off concatination. I explain to people that they just cant have the date as mmm/yyyy format AND be able to drill up/down functionality. Simple solution to a user end 'want' rather than need scenario. Our dashboards aren't what some would refer to as 'dumb charts' as I build in functions that dont rely on hidden pages and bookmarks etc... really fast once you nail the programming language for the data being used. 

Take care, Andrew - Clin Epi

[MFelix]

Hi @Clinical_Epi ,

Thank you for your words, I also use all the options you refer on my reports, the drill on date hierarchies, some switch measures or calculation groups, sometimes with some DAX measures we can really get a work around for some of the misses on the charts and visualizations, and without making use of visualizations on top of visualizations or bookmarks.

A good option currently is the charticulator visual that allows to build custom visuals without programming.

Believe that with so many other tools Power BI has some strenghts and some weakeness, and in my experience when we go to advance analytics whatever the tools is programmers always have to "invent" new ways to respond to users request.

Take care