Also, I am finding that when my x-axis is month/year, when doing the preview, it orders them properly (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, etc.) but when I load into a report, the order of the months is not the same (e.g., May 2016, Apr 2016, June 2016).  

How did you actually set the filter? What is the data type of the "x-axis"? Your post lacks many details and I doubt anybody can guess what's going on.

Here is more information .. let me know if more is required. I will give you the detail for one of my reports but see something similar in the others:

- Has the following data sets:
   - Date closed -   uses table LIVE_WORKITEM_CNT - WI_ID, CREATION_DATE, CATEGORY_NAME, ITERATION_NAME, WI_TYPE,STATE_NAME, RESOLUTION_DATE; filter - STATE_NAME, RESOLUTION_DATE, ITERATION_NAME
   - Date in progress - uses table WORKITEM_CHNGS - DATE, WI_ID, ITERATION_NAME, WI_TYPE, STATE_NAME, SUMMARY, PREV_STATE_NAME; filter - ITERATION_NAME
   .. CONT

 - Cycle time - inner join of Date Closed and Date in progress data set; no filter; computed columns - Cycle Time = BirtDateTime.diffDay(row["Date in progress::DATE"],row["Date Closed::RESOLUTION_DATE"]), Lead Time = BirtDateTime.diffDay(row["Date Closed::CREATION_DATE"],row["Date Closed::RESOLUTION_DATE"]), Cycle Time Hours = if (BirtDateTime.diffHour(row["Date Closed::CREATION_DATE"], row["Date Closed::RESOLUTION_DATE"]) == 0)
{ 0.5; } else { BirtDateTime.diffHour(row["Date Closed::CREATION_DATE"], row["Date Closed::RESOLUTION_DATE"]); }
   - Lead Time - uses table WORKITEMS - WI_ID, ITERATION_NAME, WI_TYPE, SUMMARY, CREATION_DATE, RESOLUTION_DATE, Lead time; filter - RESOLUTION_DATE, ITERATION_NAME;  computed column - Lead Time = BirtDateTime.diffDay(row["CREATION_DATE"],row["RESOLUTION_DATE"])
- Time Spent - uses table WORKITEMS - WI_ID, ITERATION_NAME, SUMMARY, TIME_SPENT, CREATION_DATE, RESOLUTION_DATE, TIME_SPENT_HRS; filter - RESOLUTION_DATE, ITERATION_NAME
... CONT

 - Process Efficiency - inner join of Cycle Time and Time Spent; no filter; computed column - PE = row["Time Spent::TS_IN_HRS"]/row["Cycle time::Cycle Time Hrs"]

- Uses data from Process Efficiency
- The x-axis is month  (e.g., Apr 2016, May 2016, June 2016) - row["Cycle time::Date Closed::RESOLUTION_DATE"]
- The y-axis (series 1) is PE
- Optional Y Series grouping: Row["Cycle time::Date Closed::CATEGORY_NAME"]