Built-in Power BI Analytics - Trend Line and Forecast

?There has been a lot of buzz around MS Fabric and the powerful analytics it brings to the table. Let's start with the free tools that are built in Power BI Desktop to get our feet wet.?

Adding a Trend line inside the Line Chart?

The Line Chart visual with a Trend Line is the easiest to understand so let's take a look.?

You will need a data source; in our case we will use an excel file with a purchase date and cost column.

?Import our excel data to use.

Add the line chart visualization, use the purchase date column for the X-axis and the cost column for the Y-axis

In your visualization choose the analytics icon

In the analytics tab, enable the trend line toggle.

You will now see a new line that is by default dashed, it shows the general direction in which your data is moving.

Unfortunately, the trend line doesn't project past your last date. We need to use the forecast option for that.?

Adding forecasting to our Line Chart.

?While still under the analytics tab, enable the forecast toggle.

?

You can adjust the following:

• Units - Interval type of the forecast, years in our case.
• Seasonality? - Steps of the full data cycle.
• Forecast length - Future periods of forecast.
• Confidence interval - The confidence interval shows visually how reliable the forecast is.

TLDR - There are some great analytics tools in the free version of Power BI (Desktop). Great for personal productivity and getting into Data Analyst or Business Intelligence workflows.

Other built-in tools in the analytics tab of some built-in visuals:

• X-Axis constant line: This allows you to add a constant line along the X-axis.
• Min line: This line represents the minimum value in your data.
• Max line: This line represents the maximum value in your data.
• Average line: This line represents the average of your data.
• Median line: This line represents the median of your data.
• Percentile line: This line represents a specific percentile in your data.
• Percentile line: This line represents a specific percentile in your data.
• Symmetry shading: This feature allows you to shade the area of symmetry in your visual.