X-Axis to only display the years but show data points for all the months

[nleuck_101]

Hello All,

How would I control the X-Axis in Power BI to show the years only but the values in the chart show all the months? I feel like I've done this before but I'm not getting exactly what I want in the chart or the x-axis. Below is a screenshot of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm probably overthinking this so any help would be greatly appreciated!

[nleuck_101]

@freginier 

I used option 1. I was completely overthinking this. Thanks for the help!

[freginier · Accepted solution]

Hi nleuck_101,

In a Line chart, set the X-axis Type to Continuous (Format pane > X-axis > Type = Continuous) and feed it your real Date column (not a Year or Year-Month text column). Power BI then automatically thins out tick labels: at a wide range it shows only the years while every month is still plotted as a data point.

If you must keep a Categorical axis, build the date hierarchy (Year > Quarter > Month), turn off Concatenate labels under X-axis, and use the Expand all down one level icon so the months show with their year as the parent label.

Last resort, a calculated column you can use as the category:

Year Label = IF(MONTH('Calendar'[Date])=1, FORMAT('Calendar'[Date],"YYYY"), BLANK())

Then use [Year Label] on the X-axis with Type = Categorical and the line will have monthly points but only year labels. The Continuous axis option is the cleanest one in 99% of cases.

Hope this helps!