2025 Week 18 | Power BI: Create a skyline chart

Power BI, Workout Wednesday / By

Introduction

Hello everyone! This week we are looking at developing a ‘Skyline’ visual.

Anyone outside of the construction industry may not have heard this term before, but it is kind of a combination of a stacked column visual and a kanban board.

It is used in construction to show construction activities (workpacks) that are planned to start or finish during a program of works. These are usually grouped into weeks or months, and the vertical columns can look like a city skyline, hence the name.

In the DevOps world, this may be akin to showing sprint activities.

A limited version of this visual can be created using the native stacked column chart in Power BI, but we will delve into Deneb to provide a more customised version.

Requirements

Using the dataset provided, we want to show as a minimum:

  • Stacked workpacks grouped by the week start date
  • Application of colour coding by discipline with legend shown
  • Include text with the workpack number shown in each box
  • Add a tooltip to include all details of each workpack

For more advanced features:

  • Apply opacity control on colour and stroke type to differentiate between workpacks where the start pack date has passed (before today)

Optional:

  • Test the limitations of a native stacked column chart to see which of the above items can be achieved.
The dates are set to assume working from late April 2025. If you are trying this in the coming months and years, you may want to add an appropriate timeframe to each date.
 
Have a go and see what you can come up with, the dataset is in the below link. I am sure a few gurus out there will maybe produce more elegant code than mine, which I would be more than happy to see! 

If you get stuck, I have included a json template and a pbix solution file that I have put together.

Dataset

Find the dataset and other assets for this week’s challenge on GitHub.

Share

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

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

Solution

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

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