📊 Complete Documentation

Time Intelligence Visual is a custom visual for Microsoft Power BI that transforms how you analyze time-based data. Unlike standard Power BI charts, it provides dynamic period switching, smart comparisons, and interactive filtering — all inside a single visual, with zero DAX time-intelligence measures required.

Who Should Use This Visual?

• Finance teams — revenue trending, budget vs actual, variance analysis
• HR analytics — headcount tracking, hiring trends, turnover analysis
• Sales performance — period-over-period sales, quota tracking, territory comparison
• Operations — production metrics, efficiency tracking, capacity planning
• Marketing — campaign performance, lead generation, ROI tracking
• Executive dashboards — high-level KPI tracking with drill-down capability

Import from File (.pbiviz)

Power BI Service (Cloud)

Once imported in Desktop, the visual travels with your report automatically when you publish to Power BI Service. Recipients viewing the report don't need to install anything separately.

Step 1 — Add the Visual

Step 2 — Add Your Data

Step 3 — Configure Time Period

Step 4 — Add Comparison (optional)

Step 5 — Drill in with filters

Sample Scenario

Business question: "Show monthly sales in 2024 Q2 compared to the previous quarter."

Result: April, May, June 2024 (Q2) shown against January, February, March 2024 (Q1 — the previous period).

Field Wells

Date Field Requirements

✅ Supported

• Standard Date column (e.g. 2024-01-15)
• DateTime column
• Date column from a Date dimension table

❌ Not supported

• Text columns storing dates (e.g. "January 2024" as text)
• Power BI date hierarchies (Year > Quarter > Month > Day) — use the base date column
• Numeric date representations (e.g. 20240115)

= Table.TransformColumnTypes(#"Previous Step", {{"DateColumn", type date}})

Values Field Best Practices

• Use SUM for additive metrics (Sales, Quantity, Hires)
• Use AVERAGE for non-additive metrics (Price, Score, Rating)
• Negative values are supported — bars extend below zero
• Skip custom time-intelligence DAX — the visual computes YTD/MTD/QTD/CAGR itself

Data Volume Guidance

Five interactive dropdown filters let end users explore data without cluttering the report with slicers.

1. 📅 Period

2. ⇄ Compare

Sequential vs Positional

Sequential (default):
  Jan 2024 vs Dec 2023
  Feb 2024 vs Jan 2024

Positional (when a sub-period is filtered), e.g. Weekly + Month=March:
  Week 1 of March vs Week 1 of February
  Week 2 of March vs Week 2 of February

3. 📆 Year / ◧ Quarter / 🗓 Month

• Year — hidden when Period = Yearly. "Default to Latest Year" auto-selects the newest year.
• Quarter — shown for Daily/Weekly/Monthly/YTD. Hidden for Quarterly/Yearly.
• Month — shown only for Daily/Weekly. Options narrow automatically to the selected quarter.

Active Filter Chips

Selected filters appear as chips below the control bar with individual ✕ clear buttons and a "Clear All" action when 2+ filters are active.

Format Pane — Control Bar Settings

Responsive Behavior

• >700px: all dropdowns on one row
• 500–700px: wraps to two rows
• <500px: stacks vertically, labels become icons

Comparisons work automatically once you choose a Compare mode — no DAX needed. The engine intelligently decides between sequential and positional matching based on your active filters (see the Control Bar section for a full breakdown), so "Week 2 of March" always compares against "Week 2 of February" rather than an arbitrary prior week.

Positional matching examples

• Weekly + Month filter → weeks in selected month vs weeks in previous month
• Weekly + Quarter filter → weeks in selected quarter vs weeks in previous quarter
• Daily + Month filter → days in selected month vs days in previous month
• Daily + Quarter filter → days in selected quarter vs days in previous quarter
• Monthly + Quarter filter → months in selected quarter vs months in previous quarter

• Column (vertical) or Bar (horizontal) orientation
• Side by Side — current and previous bars sit next to each other
• Overlapped — bars overlap by a configurable % for compact comparison
• Behind (Ghost) — previous period rendered as a lighter "ghost" bar behind current
• Previous bar position: Left / Right / Behind the current bar
• Fully configurable: bar spacing, corner radius, bar width %, overlap %

Replaces the traditional chart title with a dynamic, data-driven narrative rendered above the chart.

What it shows

• 📈 Highest value + period name
• 📉 Lowest value + period name
• Σ Total across all visible periods
• x̄ Average (optional)
• Overall % change vs previous (when comparison is active)

3 Narrative Styles

Customizable: font size, family, color, bold, alignment, background + transparency, display units, decimal places, highlight/positive/negative colors. Responsive — the measure name auto-hides on small screens.

• Position: Outside End · Inside End · Inside Base · Inside Center
• Show/hide previous-period labels independently
• Optional background with transparency control
• Display units + decimal places
• Full font control (size, family, color, bold, italic)

X & Y Axis

• Show/hide each axis independently
• Title text, font, color
• Label font size, color, family, rotation, word-wrap, max width
• Grid lines: show/hide, color, width, style (solid/dashed/dotted)
• Y-axis position (left/right), display units, decimal places, min/max range override

• 4 styles: Arrow (▲▼) · Line with Cap · Whisker · Bracket
• Positive/negative colors, thickness, cap width
• Label position: above bar · top of chart · on bar
• Toggle absolute change value instead of percentage

• Trend line drawn over current-period bars, with animated drawing effect
• Configurable moving-average window (any number of periods)
• Line color, width, style (solid/dashed/dotted)
• Data-point dots with configurable size and elastic pop-in animation

Legend

• 8 position anchors: top, topCenter, bottom, bottomCenter, left, right, etc.
• Custom labels for "Current" and "Previous" period series
• Full font customization

Tooltip

• Smart auto-positioning — stays within chart bounds even near edges
• Shows current value, previous value, % change, absolute change, YTD, running total, moving average, CAGR
• Separate decimal-place settings for values vs percentages
• Background, text color, font size fully customizable

• 12 easing types: Linear, Ease In, Ease Out, Ease In-Out, Bounce, Elastic, Back, Cubic, Circle, Exponential, Polynomial, Sinusoidal
• Stagger option — bars animate one after another with configurable delay
• Duration range: 100–3000ms
• Trend line and moving average animate with a drawing effect; dots use elastic pop-in

All calculated automatically — no DAX required:

• YTD — Year to Date
• MTD / QTD — Month / Quarter to Date
• Running Total — recalculated after filtering for accuracy
• Moving Average — configurable window
• CAGR — Compound Annual Growth Rate

• Click a bar to cross-filter other visuals on the page
• Multi-select with Ctrl+Click
• Selected bars get a configurable highlight border; unselected bars dim to a configurable opacity
• Click an empty area to clear selection; right-click for a context menu

• Full keyboard navigation — Tab, Arrow keys, Enter, Spacebar
• ARIA labels for screen readers, including custom dropdown components
• Focus indicators and focus trapping inside open dropdowns
• High-contrast mode support
• Screen-reader announcements on data changes

Error Handling

• Invalid date detection and empty-data states handled gracefully
• Negative value support — bars extend below zero
• Large number formatting up to trillions+
• Date-range validation warnings surfaced in the browser console (F12)

Data Modeling

• Use a dedicated Date dimension table where possible
• Ensure date columns are genuine Date type, not Text
• Pre-aggregate very large datasets in Power Query

Visual Design

• Choose colors with sufficient contrast for accessibility
• Use pattern fills for previous-period bars if the report may be printed in grayscale
• Enable data labels for precise values in exec-facing reports
• Keep Period Summary visible for context — it replaces a static title effectively

Performance

• Disable animation for datasets over ~50,000 rows
• Prefer Import mode over DirectQuery where possible
• Filter data in Power Query before loading into the model