Area charts

An area chart is a combination of a line chart with an area or layers covered below the line. We could add a secondary y-axis, with just 2 mouse clicks Power BI. The area between the line charts is filled with colors to show volumes of data. We can change the value of the x-axis, y-axis, its title, legends, small multiples, tooltips, etc. We can also add various options like series labels, markers, and data labels in an area chart.

When to use area charts

• To show volume data trends across time series.
• To represent single or dual data series showing the countable dataset.

Follow the steps as given to implement the area charts but for a better look and feel of UI or any other formatting changes, refer to this “Format area charts” article.

Pre-requisite: You can refer to Power BI interactive dashboards for easy implementation of the following charts.

DataSet Used

The dataset used is “DataSet.xls“. Upload the dataset in Power BI and refer to the dataset to follow along with the below-given sections of the article.

Data: We will be working with “DataSet.xls ” data with data fields as shown in the above image. The major variables used to show the charts are as follows.

• Salary: It is the salary of any employee on any particular date.
• Loan: Loan taken by the person.
• Gender: “F” and “M” represents the different genders.
• Remaining_Debt: The remaining debt left out for payment.
• Purpose: The purpose for which the loan has been taken.
• Interest_rate: The interest rate applied for the loan payment.
• Year: The respective year for loan date.
• Quarter: The respective quarter for the loan date.
• Month: Different months in which loan are taken

Load Data in Power BI Desktop

Open Power BI Desktop

Click the “Get Data” option and select “Excel” for data source selection and extraction.

Select the relevant desired file from the folder for data load. In this case, the file is “DataSet.xls”. click the “Load” button once the preview is shown for the Excel data file.

The dashboard is seen once the file is loaded with the “Visualizations” Pane and “Data fields” Pane which stores the different variables of the data file. Drag the red-colored square box to the main canvas.

In the “Visualizations” pane, we can select the chart type needed for our visual representation of business data. In the following image, the red colored square represents the “area” chart that can be dragged for the “Report” view for further process.

Initial Canvas: The initial canvas looks like the following.

In this article, we will learn to implement basic area charts using Power BI. This discusses some important concepts used to create the very common area charts so as to make large business intelligence decisions made out of analyzing data trends. We will be discussing the following topics and their implementation in the Power BI desktop.