Waterfall chart - breakdown leading up to the first time point?

[Dimani]

Hello

Referring to the examples in the Microsoft webpage below, 

Waterfall charts in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

when there are breakdowns over months,

at the first month (ie Jan), there are no built up like the rest of the months.

Is it possible to show the breakdown leading up to Jan as well?  Or it is not possible?

Thanks

D

[MAwwad]

Yes, it is possible to show the breakdown leading up to the first month in a waterfall chart.

To do this, you can add a starting value to your data that represents the starting point for the waterfall chart. This starting value will be shown as the first column in the chart, and the other columns will show the changes from that starting value.

For example, suppose you have data that looks like this:

Month Value

Jan	100
Feb	150
Mar	200

To show the breakdown leading up to Jan, you can add a row to the top of the table with a starting value:

Month Value

Start	0
Jan	100
Feb	150
Mar	200

When you create a waterfall chart using this data, the first column in the chart will show the starting value of 0, and the other columns will show the changes from that starting value.

Note that you may need to adjust the formatting of the chart to make it clear that the first column represents the starting value. You can also hide the "Start" row from the visual by selecting it and clicking "Hide" in the "Visualizations" pane.

[Dimani]

Hello DataSlayer,

Thanks for your information.  I did not specify the data source we are using; that it is SQL Server Analysis Service (SSAS), and we are using live connection.  Therefore, in Power BI Desktop, we cannot add a new row to the table, like when we have Excel or perhaps some other data sources.  We have a slicer, though not exactly time such as year, it is time sensitive.  I wonder how that all play out if we need to add data to the database to make this work.  Perhaps I will give it a try first in Excel by micmicing what we have in the database, and see how it works out.

Best regards

D

[MAwwad]

As you mentioned that you are using a live connection to SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) as your data source in Power BI Desktop, it is not possible to add new rows directly to the table from within Power BI Desktop.

To add new data to the database, you will need to do that directly in the SSAS data source. Once the new data is added to the database, you can refresh the data in Power BI to reflect the updated data.

Regarding the slicer, it is possible to use time-sensitive slicers in Power BI that are linked to a date or time column in your data. You can use a date or time column in your data model as the basis for your slicer, and then select the appropriate time period (e.g., year, quarter, month, week, day) to filter your data.

If you need to test adding new data to the database, you can try that in Excel by creating a similar data model with a live connection to the SSAS data source. This will allow you to test how the data refreshes in Power BI when new data is added to the database.