Any Power BI users out there? Chart problems.

I have used several data visualisation tools over the years, e.g. SAP WebI & Tableau, but have never had to use anything so difficult and user unintuitive as Power BI.

Until now.

God I hate this tool, why is it so unnecessarily complicated?

Anyway, the problem I have is this. I am trying to create a simple clustered bar chart showing a range of weekly figures for a period of time, using data from a simple Excel spreadsheet. When I add columns it does not align them to the left corner of the X-axis.

When adding more bars, the first bar remains in the same place rather than the columns all centring and spreading out from the middle.

I can’t find anywhere in Power BI that allows me to align the bars with the left side.

Does anyone have any idea how I can get my chart to align properly?

This is something that took me about 15 minutes to do in the public version of Tableau yesterday, and that included installing it on my laptop. Unfortunately I have no option but to use the godforsaken demonspawn of Power BI as my employers insist on using it, probably because they don’t have to pay for something that works simply.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Power BI?

Thanks to anyone who can shed any light on why I can’t do such a simple task.

It looks like you are not using any data for the x-axis, so it only has 1 point of reference so everything will be on that point. Is something along these lines your issue?

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Clustered-column-chart-without-X-axis-values/m-p/73643
RM.

As above, it doesn’t look like you have an x-axis e.g.

I think Power BI is fantastic and as easy or as hard to build as you like

never had to use anything so difficult and user unintuitive as Power BI.

Ah just wait until you get started with DAX 😉

IME when things get difficult with Power BI the first thing to check is your data model. In this case, as above, it seems you’re missing a data set which might help. Also (from personal experience) it’s not the sort of tool where you can get by if you just wing it. A bit of time going through some online learning (the MS stuff is OK) can actually help.

Cheers, have checked the X axis and no, for some reason it was dumping the data into the Y axis.

Have moved them into the X and put a Y axis value and it’s gone really weird now, only returning a bar for 1 date and a load of numbers stacked under it.

I’ve done training courses on it and everything but I think it’s such a difficult tool to use and doesn’t seem at all logical.

It would be nice to be able to use SQL coding (e.g. MySql) in it but DAX always seems far more complex than it needs.

A bit of time going through some online learning (the MS stuff is OK) can actually help

Agree with this. I was handed Power BI desktop 2 years and told to crack on. I quickly realised that it was nothing like Excel and have since spent my time on the Fabric forums learning. It actually reminds me more of working in MS Access a lot.

There’s a confusing mix of DAX and m query to learn which is a bit frustrating.

Have moved them into the X and put a Y axis value and it’s gone really weird now, only returning a bar for 1 date and a load of numbers stacked under it.

Check your dates are actually dates and numbers actually numbers. In Power query, they might be represented as text values and will mess up charts. You can convert to integers and dates in there. It might solve the issue.

Check your dates are actually dates and numbers actually numbers. In Power query, they might be represented as text values and will mess up charts. You can convert to integers and dates in there. It might solve the issue.

Or it’s a hierarchy and you need to expand??

Pinkster – I’d start by checking your data types are correct (dates are dates , numbers are whole/decimal etc.) and if you’re still struggling drop another screenshot on?

RM.

p.s. chatGPT is a pretty good tool for converting (or guiding) SQL to DAX.

There’s a confusing mix of DAX and m query to learn which is a bit frustrating.

Ahem – that’ll be M query. Case sensitive innit!

Cheers for the Suggestions and recommendations folks. I’m going to persist and sort it out but will never understand why it needs to be so much more difficult than other similar tools.

Re. the dates thing, Tableau reads them as dates so I’m hoping that BI is.