2025 Week 17 | Power BI: Create a control chart

Introduction

Welcome back to Workout Wednesday! This week we’re building a Control Chart.

Control charts can be used to track a specific process measure – such as sales, defects, or processing time – over a period of time.

A few common uses are:

Manufacturing: Monitoring defect rates and equipment performance
Healthcare: Tracking infection rates, patient wait times, and treatment quality
Sales and Marketing: Measuring performance against targets, identifying fluctuations in results
IT and Operations: Evaluating system performance, downtime, and response times

Requirements

Beginner: Get data model from starter file

Download the Power BI desktop starter file
Go through the tables, model and measures to try to understand what you’re going to be working with.
- This model includes:
  - A Measures Table
  - Folders with numbered naming conventions in the order of operations to build
  - Measures with numbered naming conventions in the order of operations to build
  - Measure Documentation Table (used info functions and queried the model with excel!)

Intermediate: Get and transform data

Download data from Kaggle (For this model, the Kaggle data was modified to cover a different date range and values)
Model Data
- Star Schema
  - This model started with a single flat file and ended with eight tables!
- Include a Date Table

Create Visuals

Minimum visuals needed
- Line chart
- Two parameters
Create Target Calculations
- Total Sales
- Target values
  - Upper bounds
  - Lower bounds
  - Target Value
Any add-ons you can think of!

Dataset

This week’s data comes from Kaggle. Note that for this model, the Kaggle data was modified. Download the starter file to see the exact data used.

After you finish your workout, share on social media using the hashtags #WOW2025 and #PowerBI. Tag me (James) on LinkedIn, along with Meagan, Kerry, and Shannon.

On Bluesky, tag @mmarie.bsky.social, @shan-gsd.bsky.social, and @merrykerry.bsky.social.

Solution

Solution File

Download the solution file to see exactly how the report is built!