How to best visualize sales results

[PhMeDie]

To all the visualization experts out there,

I am struggling with the following and wanted to hear what you think.

I am asked to visualize sales results. You would think it should be the easiest thing ever, but apparently it is not.

I started with this. Simple and easy. This visual is also ideal to use the drill functions. But then users started to complain. They were saying they couldn't understand the variance in % (and absolute value). And then it got already tricky. I could revert back to a simple table showing all information like Net Sales CY, var. % and var. Abs. But I would say that's a step backward. Adding another chart showing only the var. % didn't really work, because a) the sort order was different and b) I cannot anylonger drill, or I have to always drill on two charts. I considered having tooltips, but that was not sufficient.

So to all experts out there. How have you solved this challenge? Any tips?

Looking forward hearing back soon.

Best,

P

[v-yetao1-msft]

Hi @PhMeDie 

The different visuals in the desktop are also different. So you must first clarify your purpose. What kind of effect you want to achieve, what kind of calculation result you get, what kind of comparison result you need to provide to customers, etc., are all you need to confirm. After clarifying your purpose, choose the corresponding visual.

It would be best if you already have actual cases or data that you can provide. Please also attach the results you want.

The following link is an introduction to visual in desktop, you can take a look .

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/end-user-visual-type

Best Regards

Community Support Team _ Ailsa Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[vanessafvg]

Firstly you need to ask yourself what is the objective of what you are trying to tell the users?  having more than one visual definitely makes sense as combining absolute values and %'s is confusing

There is nothing wrong with a table either but you could can compliment it with other visuals.

What is your actual requirement?  You are trying to show the variance of this year vs last year and what do you need to drill down on?  I am not quite understanding why you arent able to have 2 charts.  If you can share some dummy data I could mock something up for you.

https://www.sqlbi.com/ref/power-bi-visuals-reference/  is also  useful on deciding what visuals to use