Visualizations

01The problem

Your model and measures are ready. Now they need to become a page someone can read. Power BI has dozens of visuals; a handful do most of the work, and knowing how they interact (click one bar, and the whole page filters) is what makes a report feel alive.

02The concept

The core visuals

Formatting (Format visual, paintbrush icon): titles, data labels, axis units (Millions), colours. For a single highlighted bar: Format → Bars → Colors → turn on Show all and colour one category.

Conditional formatting in tables and matrices: click the field's drop-down in the Values well → Conditional formatting → Background color / Data bars / Icons.

Interactions. Clicking a data point in one visual cross-filters or cross-highlights the others. Control it: select a visual → Format → Edit interactions, then choose filter, highlight or none on each other visual.

Drill down. With a hierarchy (Year → Quarter → Month) on an axis, the drill arrows at the top of the visual move between levels.

Tooltips. Hovering shows details; add extra measures to the Tooltips well to show more (e.g. YoY % when hovering a region's bar).

Choosing a visual from the question

Pie, donut, gauge and map visuals exist too. Use them rarely: a sorted bar chart compares values more accurately than a pie, and a map is only useful when location itself matters.

Filters at four levels

Besides slicers, the Filters pane filters at different scopes:

Slicers sit on the page where users can see and change them. Filters-pane filters are often set by the report author and can be locked or hidden. A number that looks wrong is often explained by a forgotten filter, so check the Filters pane first.

Filter or highlight?

When a user clicks a bar, other visuals respond in one of two ways:

Set them with Format → Edit interactions: select the visual you'll click, then choose the icon above each other visual.

03Example

A first report page for Kolanut:

• Top row: three Cards: Revenue, YoY %, Active Customers.
• Left: Line chart: Date[Year Month] on the X-axis, Revenue and Revenue LY on the Y-axis.
• Right: Clustered bar: customers[region] on the Y-axis, Revenue on the X-axis, YoY % in Tooltips, sorted descending.
• Bottom: Matrix: products[category] in Rows, Date[Year] in Columns, Revenue in Values, with data bars.
• Side: Slicers for customers[channel] and Date[Year].

Click the North West bar and every other visual shows North West only.

Here's a first version of that page built in Power BI Desktop, with a card, a slicer and two bar charts:

Tick Wholesale in the slicer and every visual on the page recalculates for wholesale customers only:

04Walkthrough

1. Add the three cards. For each, Format → Callout value → Display units Millions for revenue.
2. Add the line chart. If the X-axis shows a hierarchy (Year, Quarter, Month, Day), use Date[Year Month] instead, or drill down to Month.
3. Add the region bar chart; sort by Revenue (… menu → Sort axis → Revenue, descending).
4. Add the matrix with data bars on Revenue.
5. Add slicers; set their style to Tile or Dropdown (Format → Slicer settings).
6. Click around. Then select the line chart → Format → Edit interactions and set the region bar chart to filter rather than highlight the line chart.

05Practice

06More practice

Optional drills. They don't count towards the certificate, but they're the fastest way to make this lesson stick. Several use a different dataset from the lesson on purpose: if you can do the same thing on unfamiliar data, you've really learned it.

07Check your understanding