Skip to content

15. Visualizations and Interaction

Goal: Build your first charts. See how visuals interact with each other.

Step 1: Make a new table visual

  1. Click the empty space on the report canvas. This clears the current selection.
  2. Click the Table icon to add a new table visual.
  3. Add Date from the Calendar table.
  4. Add Total Sales from the measures.

Calendar and Total Sales in a table A table with the date and the total sales.

Step 2: Fix the date format (if needed)

If the Date column shows a wrong format or a text value:

  1. Go to Data view or the table view.
  2. Find the Calendar table.
  3. Click the Date column.
  4. In the top ribbon, click Data type.
  5. Select Date.

The relationship problems go away after the type change.

Wrong data type stops relationships

A text date cannot connect to a date column. Power BI shows wrong numbers or an error. Check the data type when a relationship looks broken.

Step 3: See the interaction between visuals

  1. Put the customer table visual on the left.
  2. Put the new date and sales table visual on the right.
  3. Click a date in the right table. Example: 4 January.

The left table changes. Only the customers of that date stay visible. The other numbers dim.

This is interaction (cross-filtering). One visual filters another visual.

Interaction is hard in Excel

This live filtering is difficult to do in Excel. In Power BI it happens with one click.

Step 4: Check a total with the model

  1. Click one date in the date table.
  2. Read the total sales for that date.
  3. Compare it with the daily total in the big table.

Both numbers must match. This is the proof that the model works.

Step 5: Make a chart

  1. Click the Line chart icon in the Visualizations panel.
  2. Add Date to the X-axis. Use the Date column (one column, not the year-quarter-month-day hierarchy).
  3. Add Total Sales to the Y-axis.

Line chart of total sales over time A line chart of daily sales.

Use the date column, not the hierarchy

Power BI builds a hierarchy from a date column: year, quarter, month, day. Drag the plain Date column if you want one point per day.

Next: Continue to 16. Dashboard.