Forum Discussion
Segmented Bar Chart
Hi newhopepdx
In Power BI there are fewer customization options compared to Excel or PowerPoint. To get a layout like yours, you need to start with a proper table structure.
The right approach is:
Build a table with Year / Week / Value / Sort (as in your screenshot).
Place Year on the Y-axis.
Use the Sort column so that the Plan row appears in the middle between the years.
Put Week in the legend, so each week is represented as a separate stacked segment.
The pbix is attached
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly
Hi newhopepdx
It might be technically possible to build something similar by creating a dimension table with Year, Week, and Plan, plus a custom sort column to place Plan in the middle.
However, this visualization cannot really be interpreted.
The reasons are:
-
Mixing the time axis with the Plan metric — our brains are not trained to separate that.
-
A stacked bar chart does not allow proper week-to-week comparison, since comparing horizontal segments is very difficult. It becomes even harder to understand the gap versus last year and versus plan.
A chart can deliver only one clear message. When trying to push three messages into one, it’s like writing three sentences on top of each other — impossible to read.
If the goal is to understand weekly trends, a chart like the one in my screenshot (showing variance vs budget) would work, but in your case it should also include last year.
If the goal is instead to see the cumulative result vs target and vs prior year, then a table combined with bars/deltas by category is more effective.
The key point: users need structured layouts that allow them to process the messages one by one. We should give them visuals that follow natural, intuitive thinking patterns instead of forcing them to decode the logic in their heads.
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly
Ritaf1983,
I appreciate your input. And I plan to use the actual vs budget type chart on detail pages. The chart I'm trying to replicate in PBI is currently being created by updating the data by hand each week in Powerpoint using a custom Combo bar chart. Here are the details. (In the Legend Entries (series) column, "Plan" sets on the row below the 5 weeks).
I'm hoping we can replicate this in PBI where we can, via a slicer and measures, fill in the data ranges needed.
Hi newhopepdx
In Power BI there are fewer customization options compared to Excel or PowerPoint. To get a layout like yours, you need to start with a proper table structure.
The right approach is:
Build a table with Year / Week / Value / Sort (as in your screenshot).
Place Year on the Y-axis.
Use the Sort column so that the Plan row appears in the middle between the years.
Put Week in the legend, so each week is represented as a separate stacked segment.
The pbix is attached
If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly
Thanks Ritaf1983,
That will do what we're after.
