Data fields
The Bump Chart is driven entirely by the fields you drag into its wells. This page covers every field — what it does, whether it's required, how many columns it accepts — and, just as importantly, exactly how your data is read.
Field summary
| Field | Required | Accepts | Max columns | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series | Yes | Column (text, number or date) | 1 | One line is drawn for each distinct value. |
| Time | Yes | Column (date, number or text) | 1 | One step along the horizontal axis for each distinct value. |
| Value | Yes | Measure or column | 1 | The number each series is ranked by at every step. |
| Tooltips | No | Measures or columns | 5 | Extra values shown on hover, alongside the value and rank. |
Until Series, Time and Value are all bound, the visual shows its landing page instead of a chart.
The shape your data needs
The visual reads a grid: series down, periods across, one number in each cell.
| Quarter | Product | Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q1 | Aurora | 412,000 |
| 2026 Q1 | Beacon | 388,500 |
| 2026 Q2 | Aurora | 355,000 |
| 2026 Q2 | Beacon | 402,100 |
- Your table can be finer-grained than that — one row per order, per match, per transaction. Power BI aggregates it to one number per series per period before the visual sees it.
- Your table must not be wider than that. If periods are spread across columns (
Q1,Q2,Q3…), unpivot them in Power Query first. - Every combination of series and period that has no number simply isn't ranked — see Blank values.
Power BI applies its standard data-reduction window to the periods it sends the visual (1,000 steps). That is far beyond readability: a bump chart works at roughly 4–30 periods and 3–15 series. Filter to a date range, a category or a Top N before the visual sees the data.
Series
The thing being ranked: product, team, country, channel, salesperson, keyword.
- Accepts text, numbers or dates. Values are converted to text for the legend and the labels.
- Each distinct value becomes one line, one legend entry, and one colour picker under Format → Data Colors.
- Colours are assigned by series name, so a series keeps its colour when the data refreshes or the filter changes. Renaming a series in the model gives it a new colour.
- Series with a blank name are drawn under a generated label (
Series 0,Series 1…). Clean these up in the model.
Every series is a line, a legend entry, and potentially two end labels. Past about 15 series a bump chart stops being readable — use Top N to keep only the contenders, or filter upstream.
Time
One step along the horizontal axis per distinct value: a year, a quarter, a month, a week, a round, a stage, a survey wave.
How your periods are ordered
The order rule follows the column's type, and the visual never re-sorts what Power BI already got right:
| Time column type | Order used | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Date / date-time | Chronological, ascending | Always, regardless of the model's sort order. |
| Whole number / decimal | Ascending | Rounds, weeks-of-year, seasons numbered 1…N. |
| Text | Your model's order | Set it with Sort by column on the model column. |
Text columns are the ones to check. January, February, March… sorts alphabetically unless you tell the model otherwise:
- In Model view, select the text column (e.g.
Month Name). - On the ribbon, choose Sort by column and pick a numeric key (e.g.
Month Number). - Return to the report — the axis now follows that order.
A blank value in the Time column becomes a step with an empty axis label, drawn at the far left. Filter blanks out in the visual's filter card, or fix them in the model.
Dates on the axis
- A date column keeps its model format string, so the axis labels match how the field is formatted everywhere else in the report. Change the format on the column, not in the visual.
- Full dates make long tick labels. For a compact axis, use a short display format or a purpose-built period column (
2026 Q1,Wk 12). - If two periods format to the same label — January 2025 and January 2026 both shown as
Jan— they still get their own position on the axis, but nobody reading it can tell them apart. Widen the format.
Dropping a date column offers Power BI's built-in date hierarchy. The Bump Chart reads a single level, so choose the one you want (Year, Quarter, Month) — or bind the plain date column — rather than leaving the full hierarchy in the well.
The axis is evenly spaced
Steps are laid out at equal intervals, in order — the axis is a sequence of periods, not a time scale. A gap of one month and a gap of three years occupy the same distance. That is deliberate (rank changes read as an even cadence), but it means an irregular series can imply a rhythm that isn't there. If the true spacing matters, use a line chart.
Periods with no data at all
If every series is blank in a period, that period is dropped from the axis — no empty column is drawn. If you need the gap to show, make the measure return a real number (for example Revenue + 0, or COALESCE) so that the period carries values.
Value
The number the ranking is based on. Highest value ranks first.
- Bind a measure, or a column that Power BI aggregates for you. Check the aggregation in the field's dropdown — Sum is the default, and an accidental Count silently ranks the wrong thing.
- Negative values and zeros rank normally — they simply land at the bottom of the table.
- The value itself is never plotted; it only decides the order. It appears in the tooltip, formatted with its model format string plus the display-unit settings.
- To invert the meaning — where lowest is best, as with lap times, error counts or cost — negate the measure and see Ranking lowest-is-best measures.
Blank values
A series with no value in a period is not ranked in that period. It doesn't occupy a rank slot, so the remaining series close up: if 8 of 10 series report in a period, ranks run 1–8.
What that looks like on the chart:
| Situation | What you see |
|---|---|
| A series is blank for a middle period | The line connects straight across the gap; no marker is drawn for that period. |
| A series is blank at the start | Its line begins later, and it gets no left-hand label. |
| A series is blank at the end | Its line stops earlier, and it gets no right-hand label. |
| A series is blank everywhere | It isn't drawn, and it isn't in the legend. |
A gap caused by a blank value is bridged by the line. A gap caused by a series falling out of the Top N is drawn as a real break. That's the quickest way to tell the two apart on screen.
Tooltips
Up to five extra columns or measures, shown on hover beneath the standard rows.
- Values respect the model format string of the column or measure — currency, percentages, decimals, date formats — and are deliberately not affected by the Tooltips card's display units or decimal places. Independent formatting is the reason to add a field here.
- Column names are used as the labels, so rename in the model (or in the field well) to control the wording.
- Fields appear in the order you drop them.
- A blank value for a row is omitted from that tooltip rather than shown empty.
See Tooltips for what the standard rows contain and how report-page tooltips work.
Next steps
- Ranking & Top N — how the numbers you've just bound become positions.
- Lines, markers & labels — the appearance of the race.
- Use cases — the data shape behind each common scenario.