How to Make Stacked Bar Charts More Readable in Power BI Without Bookmarks

Stacked Bar Charts in Power BI can be frustrating when data labels overlap and become unreadable. A simple solution? Enable a series display option! Inspired by Nicholas Lea-Trengrouse’s inspiring work, I decided to develope a no-bookmarks-required version. Because needing no bookmark in Power BI is always a blessing.

Here’s what you’ll need:
✔ A disconnected table
✔ Measures adapted to your display options
✔ A list slicer for series selection

Furthermore the list slicer will help you spotting trends in the single series much easier. As you can display each series isolated.

So here are the single steps you need to follow to end up with a solution displayed in the picture above.

Disconnected Table

First you have to create a disconnected table with all the selection options you want to use.

Customer Selections =

DATATABLE(

"Category", STRING,

{

{ "New"},

{ "Lost"},

{ "Returning"},

{ "All"}

}

)

The List Sclicer

Then you need to add a list slicer with the category fields you created in your disconnected table. I just renamed the field afterd dragging in to give the user a clear idea what to do and not having to add extra text.

Adapting the Measures

After that you have to adapt the measure to make sure that they are only displayed when the option in the list slicer is selected.

First you need some DAX to check the slicer slelection.

SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "New" || SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "All"

And adapt when the measure is displayed.

Var __Displayed = SWITCH (True(),

SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "New" || SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "All",__Result,

0)

Here you can see how the complete measure for New Customers has been modified.

91_New Customers =

VAR __Date = MIN( Kalender[Date])

VAR __Current = DISTINCT( Ecommerce[Customer ID])

VAR __Previous =

DISTINCT(

SELECTCOLUMNS(

FILTER(

ALL( Ecommerce ),

[Order Date] < __Date

),

"ID", [Customer ID]

)

VAR __Table = EXCEPT( __Current, __Previous )

VAR __Result = COUNTROWS( __Table ) + 0

Var __Displayed = SWITCH (True(),

SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "New" || SELECTEDVALUE('Customer Selections'[Category]) = "All",__Result,

0)

RETURN

__Displayed

This needs to be done for all your measures you will use in the Stacked Bar Chart.

Summary

By following a few simple steps, you can create Stacked Bar Charts in Power BI where users can easily toggle series on or off.

✔ Improved readability of data labels
✔ Seamless integration into each dashboard
✔ No need for complex bookmarks
✔ Easily spot trends by isolating single series

So if you haven't started yet, maybe you should try to recreate it on your own! Have fun while diving in!