Power BI March 2025: Creating a Four-Color Quadrant in Scatter Visuals
In the March 2025 Power BI update, the Reference Line feature has been enhanced, enabling new possibilities to improve the visualization experience for users. One of the use cases is to create a four-color quadrant(Each quadrant having a different background color) in a scatter visual, a feature that was previously limited to coloring scatter bubbles or dots. By leveraging color transparency, constant reference lines on both X and Y axes, and the new shaded area options, we can now assign different background colors to each quadrant. This blog post will take you through the process, taking advantage of the Power BI March 2025 Features.
Background
Previously, Power BI users were able to get four quadrants in scatter visuals using reference lines, but were limited to one background color. To get a four-quadrant impression, coloring the scatter bubbles or shapes was used, enabling users to visually depict four quadrants with distinct colored shapes.
The March 2025 update of Power BI enabled shaded regions for reference lines and the ability to position these lines behind the chart. Furthermore, support for Y-axis reference lines has been added to specific chart types.
Although full native support for four-color quadrants in scatter visuals is still not available, users can now work around this limitation by creatively combining reference lines with transparency settings.
How to Implement this New Feature using Sales Model:
In my videos and blogs, I mostly use a sales model, which I will use in this blog too. It is a star schema and a comprehensive Power BI model that helps users analyze sales data across various dimensions. Files for this model, including source Excel and PBIX, are available in my GitHub account. The model has a Sales fact table, which contains retail sales transactions.
PBIX file
Tables Used
Sales Fact Table: This model has line-level records of retail sales transactions. Each row represents a sale, and it has some key columns such as Order No, Sales Date, Item ID, City ID, Customer ID, Gross Amount, Discount Amount, and Net Sales. One of the important measures in this model is [Net], which is the net sales amount. The formula of Net Sales is “Gross Amount” minus “Discount Amount”. This is a key measure that helps in analyzing the actual sales after discounts.
Dimension Tables: There are 4 dimension tables that are used to analyze the sales data:
- Item: This table has information about the items, including Item ID, Item Name, Category, and Brand.
- Geography: This table has information about geographical context with columns like City ID, City Name, and State. This dimension helps in analyzing sales data across different locations.
- Date: This table has information about date-related data, like Date, Month, Quarter, and Year. This dimension is an important dimension for doing time intelligence.
- Customer: It has customer-specific details such as Customer ID, Customer Name, City, and State.
Relationships
Where Gross Amount, COGS Amount, and Discount Amount are columns:
Gross Amount = Sales[Quantity]*Sales[Price]
Discount Amount = Sales[Gross Amount]*Sales[Discount Percent]/100
COGS Amount = Sales[Quantity]*Sales[cost]Additionally, we have the following measures:
COGS = Sum(Sales[COGS Amount])
Discount = Sum(Sales[Discount Amount])
Gross = Sum(Sales[Gross Amount])
Net = [Gross]-[Discount]
Margin = [Net] -[COGS]
Discount % = DIVIDE([Discount],[Gross])
Margin % = DIVIDE([Margin],[Net])You can watch them in action in this video
1. Try out the new feature on Power BI Desktop
1. Create the Scatter Visual
- Add a new page and insert a Scatter Visual, resizing it to cover the full page.
Configure the visual:
- Y-Axis: Margin% (measure)
- X-Axis: Discount% (measure)
- Values: A categorical field (e.g., City from the Geography)
- Reverse the X-axis scale (since lower discounts are better):
- Select the visual, go to X-Axis properties, and enable Invert Scale.
2. Add X-Axis Reference Lines
To create the left and right quadrant colors:
- Select the scatter visual and navigate to Visualizations > Reference Line > Add Line.
Add an X-Axis Constant Line:
- Set the Value to Discount% (e.g., via fx to select the measure).
- Enable Shaded Area:
- Set Position to Before and and choose the color Red (#FF8888) with 45% transparency.
- Position the line behind the chart.
- Add a second X-Axis Constant Line at the same value (35%):
- Enable Shaded Area for After.
- Set Position to After and choose the color Yellow (#FFFF00) with 10% transparency.
- Position the line Behind the chart.
This creates the red (left) and yellow (right) background colors.
3. Add Y-Axis Reference Lines
To create the top and bottom quadrant colors:
- Add a Y-Axis Constant Line:
- Set the Value to Margin% (e.g., via fx to select the measure).
- Enable Shaded Area:
- Set Position Before and and choose the color Red (#FF0000) with 25% transparency.
- Position the line behind the chart.
- Add a second Y-Axis Constant Line at the same value (35%):
- Enable Shaded Area for After.
- Set Position to After and choose the color Blue (#0066FF) with 45% transparency.
- Position the line behind the chart.
This creates the red (bottom) and blue (top) background colors, overlapping with the X-axis colors to form the four quadrants.
4. Fine-Tune the Quadrant Colors
The overlapping shaded areas with transparency create the desired quadrant colors:
- Top-Left (Red + Blue): High Discount %, High Margin % → Blue-ish
- Top-Right (Yellow + Blue): Low Discount %, High Margin % → Green-ish
- Bottom-Left (Red + Red): High Discount %, Low Margin % → Red
- Bottom-Right (Yellow + Red): Low Discount %, Low Margin % → Orange
Adjust transparency percentages (e.g., 10%–45%) to achieve the desired color blending. Experimentation may be needed to match your brand or preferences.
5. Enhance the Scatter Visual
With the background colored, the scatter bubbles no longer need quadrant-based coloring. Instead, use them to convey additional insights:
- Bubble Size: Add a measure (e.g., COGS) to the Size field.
- Adjust the size range in Visualization Properties > Size > Range Scaling to Data Range for better proportionality.
- Example range: -25 to -30 (adjust based on your data).
- Bubble Color: Apply conditional formatting to reflect another measure (e.g., Net Sales).
- Go to Markers > Colors > fx > Conditional Formatting > Gradient.
- Set the gradient (e.g., White for lowest, Black for highest) based on the Net measure.
Outcome
The scatter visual now displays:
- Four colored quadrants reflecting Margin% and Discount% combinations.
- Bubble sizes indicate COGS.
- Bubble colors show Net Sales via a gradient.
- A clear distinction between high/low margin and discount areas, with the green quadrant (high margin, low discount) as the ideal zone and the red quadrant (low margin, high discount) as the problematic zone.
The March 2025 Power BI update to Reference Lines provides creative visualization options like the four-color quadrant scatter visual. By combining X- and Y-axis constant lines, shaded areas, and transparency, one can create insightful, visually appealing visuals without relying on bubble colors alone. This method allows us to use bubble size and bubble color for additional measures.
Hope you like this blog and will try this technique in your Power BI reports, and experiment with transparency and measures to suit your data.
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