Time series analysis is at the heart of understanding how data behaves over time. Whether you’re tracking sensor readings, monitoring system performance, or analyzing business trends, the ability to visualize and explore time-based data is essential for making informed decisions.
The Time Series Visualization in Real-Time Dashboard feature brings a dedicated set of capabilities designed specifically for navigating, comparing, and customizing time series data within your Real-Time Dashboards.
Figure: The Time Series visual in action, comparing multiple measures in a zoomed-in timeframe
The challenge with time series data
Time series datasets often contain dozens—or even hundreds—of data series. A single dashboard tile tracking machine performance across a factory floor might display readings from every sensor on every piece of equipment. Finding the data that matters is difficult.
Traditional charting approaches treat time series data like any other visualization. But time-based data has unique characteristics: trends emerge over periods, patterns repeat seasonally, and anomalies hide in the gaps between normal readings. Analyzing this data requires more than a static chart.
Users need ways to navigate through many data series without losing context, compare values across different time periods, and focus on specific patterns while keeping the bigger picture accessible. That’s what Time Series Visualization provides.
What’s new
Adjust the data
When you’re working with multivariate time series data, finding the right series matters. Time Series Visualization includes a legend search bar that lets you quickly locate specific data series by name. You can focus on a single series by selecting it from the chart or legend, and the corresponding elements highlight automatically.
For datasets with logical groupings—like sensors organized by machine or metrics organized by region—you can navigate through groups using the navigation tree on the right.
The Entities panel displays your data series in a hierarchical tree structure based on your entity selections. You can filter the list to find specific series, expand or collapse groups, and use checkboxes to show or hide individual series in the chart. This makes it easy to focus on the data that matters without modifying your underlying query.
Figure: Use the Entities & Measures panel to adjust data - hiding, showing and reordering data.
Figure: The Entities & Measures panel is collapsible on small visuals, with an always visible legend.
Adjust the timeline
The visualization renders multiple measures as separate charts, each with its own time axis and synchronized time slider. As you adjust the time range, all charts update together, keeping your analysis aligned across different metrics.
Figure: Drag the time slider or enter values to render all charts in a specific timeframe.
Customize your visual
The Time Series visual editor gives you control over how your data is organized and displayed. In the Data section, you define your time series structure by selecting measured entities—the dimensions that categorize your data, such as region, machine, or event type—and measured data, which are the numeric values you want to track over time.
Additional customization options include flexible Y-axis scaling (global, separate, or adaptive with outlier removal), color assignments via picker or palette, zoom controls, and the option to switch between linear and logarithmic axis scales.
Figure: Configure and customize the Time Series chart.
Where this is useful
- IoT and equipment monitoring - Compare sensor readings across multiple machines to identify which equipment is drifting out of tolerance.
- Operational analytics - Track application response times, error rates, or throughput over time. Navigate through service tiers or geographic regions to find where performance bottlenecks occur. Use adaptive scaling to see patterns without outliers dominating the view.
- Business trend analysis - Analyze sales, revenue, or customer engagement patterns across time periods. Compare this quarter to last quarter, or this year to the same period last year, with aligned time frames that make seasonal patterns visible.
Get started
Time Series Visualization is available now in Real-Time Dashboards. To learn more about customizing your dashboard visuals, refer to the Customize Real-Time Dashboard visuals documentation.
Next steps
Learn more: Explore the Real-Time Dashboard documentation for guidance on creating and customizing dashboards.
Submit ideas: Share feature requests through the Microsoft Fabric Ideas forum.
Provide feedback: Let us know what you think in the Fabric Community.
Microsoft Employee