Best way to create a timeline? Not the slicer....

[jondeck24]

Hey People - so I am trying to create a timeline and having a hard time figuring the best way to do it.  My table has 4 columns, first being the product, and the other 3 being Release 1, 2, 3.  The release columns have dates in them.  These dates start from say Jan 2014 and end in Aug 2015.  The issue i'm seeing so far is that when I try to fit the dates onto an axis, that it only takes one of them - even the slicer.  I essentially need a timeline that will show 3 blips on the timeline for each product and its release date.  Is this possible with the desktop visuals?

[asjones]

did you ever find a solution for this?  I wanted something simular to the image posted.

[opticshrew]

Hi there,

Have you though about unpivoting the columns onto seperate rows and creating a slicer based on those dates. 

You could then add the column containing the previous column names into the legend which I think would show you what you wanted.

Thanks,

J

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the solution that you propose. do you have a sample. what does the input data look like and which visual are you using? How do I add a "column using the previous column name".  Thank you!

[RJ]

Im unsure what you want to do

But does this help

http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Linking-2-or-more-dates-to-one-Master-Calendar-USERELATIONSH...

[jondeck24]

I went to yahoo and typed timeline and just pulled this example from the images - just something simple like this.  A long line that signifies a date and then my dates will fit into this.  So my dates span 2014-2015 - so the start would be 2014 and end in 2015 and then my 3 date columns would fit into it like this:

So in this example, my 9 dates would fit in between 1900 and 2000 - i'm assuming we cannot do the hash lines like you see here but it would like scatter dots that I could hopefully show the label of.  Is there any way to do a basic timeline like in power bi desktop?

[Anonymous]

I am looking for the same thing. The storyteller visual doesnt help either. It's difficult to format it. 

The only way I have found so far is using ggplot2 in R to create a timeline chart: 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20695311/chronological-timeline-with-points-in-time-and-format-d...

[Anonymous]

Also.. check this out: https://daattali.com/shiny/timevis-demo/

https://www.packtpub.com/mapt/book/big_data_and_business_intelligence/9781783989508/2/ch02lvl1sec34/...

[PowerDAX]

There is no visualization that can facilitate this requirement....yet (hopefully)!

However, I would think you would need to remodel your data using the Query Editor....UnPivot Columns so that the dates would be moved from columns to a single column with another column showing point 1, 2, 3, etc..  

The best you could do to visualize this data would be utilizing a scatter chart with your date column as your x axis.

[jondeck24]

Thanks for your reply - I am trying that but I can't figure out how to make the date not be a count - it keeps trying to do a Count of Date so on my scatter chart I just see one little blip.  I made sure in my data that the column Date is a date field, etc but it still only wants to count it.  When I click the drop down it just Count, Count Distinct, and Remove.  Any thoughts? 

[Anonymous]

Hi did you ever figure out a work around for this?

[PowerBIGuy]

Check out the following custom visual. hope this helps.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/11/03/visual-awesomeness-unlocked-the-timeline-slicer.a...

[jondeck24]

Thank you for your reply, but unfortunately it doesn't.  I need the ability to show 3 separate date fields and i'm not trying to use it to slice any other data on the page but just want a timeline visual.  I really just want a long line going through the middle of the visual with Dates on the bottom axis and so there would be say 3 blue blips that would say Product 1 that would span over that date range on the bottom, then 3 red blips for Product 2, etc, etc.  With the timeline slicer I can only enter in one of my release date columns, it will not take the other 2.

[PowerBIGuy]

Sorry, i have not implemented this myself and maybe someone else on the forum has but there are plenty of articles out there about using a scatter chart to simulate a timeline. below may not be the best but is a example of one. You could create the solution in excel to understand the concept using your data and than translate it into dax and power BI desktop. 

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pro-tip-10-steps-to-building-a-project-timeline-in-excel/