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When people look at line charts, the first thing they see is the shape of the curve. This means that you need to have an x-axis that makes the curve meaningful such a time or distribution categories. If you put categorical fields like product or geography on the x-axis, the line chart will not be interesting as the shape of the curve would provide no meaningful information.
If you choose to place multiple charts, line up the X-axis. Use filters to make sure that the same range of values is shown. For example, if you’re looking at date ranges, ensure they are the same date ranges. For example, 1896 to 2012 on both charts.
Make full use of the space. If it makes sense for your data, set the start and end points for the Y-axis to eliminate empty space at the top and bottom of your chart and to focus in on the actual data points. To do this, select the paint roller icon to open the Formatting pane. Expand the Y-Axis area and set the Start and End points.
Another reason to explicitly set the Start and End points is if you’re comparing two or more charts on the same page using the same Y-axis field. For example, if you’re looking at cumulative event counts, and the United Kingdom has counts that range from 1 to 70 and Australia has counts that range from 1 to 12, the 2 line charts will display very different Y-axes (Figure x). This makes it difficult to compare at a glance. Instead, set the charts to use the same Y-axis range (Figure x).
For more information , see:
Bar/Column Charts
If line charts are the standard for looking at data over time, bar charts are the standard for looking at a specific value across different categories. If you sort the bars based on the number, you will instantly see the top values and distribution. Horizontal bar charts work well with long-ish labels.
Best practices
- Display data labels for values. This makes it easier to identify specific values. To do this, open the Formatting pane, and set Data labels to On.
One way to limit the values included is to use a filter. For example, add a Visual level filter that shows the country only if unemployment rate is above 20%.
Bar/Column charts can be drilled down (and back up again). This is a great way to pack more information into a visual without taking up more real estate. The example below has a hierarchy for Regions > Countries. Double-clicking a region bar drills down to the countries that make up that region. For more information on drill, see Drill down in a visualization.
For more details on Bar and Column charts:
Stacked Bar/Column Charts
Add another dimension to your bar/column charts by stacking different categories within the bar or column. Now the chart conveys information about one overall trend (based on height/length) but also shows the influence of the categories on that trend.
Best practices
As with columns/bars, you have the option of horizontal or vertical display. Horizontal is a better choice if you have long labels and vertical if you have time series data.
Avoid stacked Bar/Column charts if you want to show trends and other patterns of change over time. Other charts, like Line charts, do a much better job.
You can also have the distribution based on total volume or as a % of total.
As Few noted it is difficult to compare the segments of a stacked bar. If the segments were arranged side-by-side and all grew upwards from the same baseline, it would be easy to compare their heights, but when stacked upon one another, the task becomes hard. Plus, although it’s fairly easy to see how (revenue) changed from month to month it is quite difficult to see how (revenue) in the other (categories) changed.
100% Stacked charts are a good choice when using percentages that add up to 100. In the example below, we see the category distribution by team. The percentages are relative and allows us to, at a glance, see patterns. For example, Everton’s revenue comes primarily from Broadcasting (over 70%) while PSG only derives 20% of its revenue from Broadcasting. The choice of a horizontal display makes it easier to fit the team labels and to see the impact of revenue type.
For more information on stacked charts:
Combo Bar/Column Charts
In Power BI, you can combine column and line charts into a combo chart. The choices are: Line and Stacked Column chart and Line and Clustered Column chart. Save valuable canvas space by combining two separate visuals into one.
The two screenshots below show a before and after. The first page has two separate visuals: a Column chart showing population over time and a Line chart showing GDP over time. These charts are a good candidate for a Combo chart because they have the same X-Axis (year) and values (2002 through 2012). Why not combine them to compare these 2 trends on a single visual? Combining these 2 charts lets you make a quicker comparison of the data.
The new report page has a single visual: a line and stacked column chart. We could’ve just as easily created a line and clustered column chart. It’s now easier to look for a relationship between the two trends. We can see that up until 2008, population and GDP followed a similar trend. But starting in 2009, as population growth flattened, GDP was more volatile.
Best practices
Combo charts work best when both visuals have at least one axis in common.
Watch your axes! Is your Combo chart easy to read and interpret? Or does it use dissimilar ranges and values? For example, if the scale of the column chart’s Y-Axis is much smaller than the scale of the line chart’s Y-Axis, your combo chart won’t be meaningful. For example, notice the third line (aqua color) way down at the bottom.
So too, your combo chart won’t be meaningful if your column chart and line chart use 2 different measures and you don’t create dual axes. For example, dollars versus percent. Be sure to include both axes to help the reader understand the chart and consider adding axes labels as well.
To do this, open the Formatting pane, expand Y-Axis and set Show Secondary to On (if it isn’t already on). This setting is sometimes difficult to find; expand Y-Axis (Column) and scroll down until you see Show secondary. Also, set the Y-Axis (Column) Title to On and set the Y-Axis (Line) Title to On.
- Take advantage of dual axes. It’s a great way to compare multiple measures with different value ranges. And it’s a great way to illustrate the correlation between two measures in one visual.
For more information:
Scatter Chart
Sometimes we have many variables that we want to see together, and a scatter chart can be a very useful way to get an overall picture. Scatter charts display relationships between 2 (Scatter) or 3 (Bubble) quantitative measures. A scatter chart always has two value axes to show one set of numerical data along a horizontal axis and another set of numerical values along a vertical axis. The chart displays points at the intersection of an x and y numerical value, combining these values into single data points. These data points may be distributed evenly or unevenly across the horizontal axis, depending on the data.
A bubble chart replaces the data points with bubbles, with the bubble size representing an additional dimension of the data..
If you add a play axis, you can pretend you are Hans Rosling and tell the story over time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaDBJWCeD4). To add a play axis, drag a datetime field into the Play Axis well.
Best practices
Scatter and Bubble charts are great storytellers. But they are not as useful when trying to explore data. This is what Stephen Few points out in the paragraph below:
The strength of this approach is when it’s used to tell a story. When Rosling narrates what’s happening in the chart as the bubbles move around and change in value, pointing to what he wants us to see, the information comes alive. Animated bubble charts, however, are much less effective for exploring and making sense of data on our own. I doubt that Rosling uses this method to discover the stories, but only to tell them once they’re known. We can’t attend more than one bubble at once as they’re moving around, so we’re forced to run the animation over and over to try to get a sense of what’s going on. We can add trails to selected bubbles, which make it possible to review the full path these bubble have taken, but if trails are used for more than a few bubbles the chart will quickly become too cluttered. Essentially, what I’m pointing out is that this is not the best way to display this information for exploration and analysis.
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Add X and Y axes labels to help tell the story. Especially with bubble charts, there are many components at play and labels help readers understand the visual.
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Add data labels to make the visual easier to interpret. Especially with bubble charts, when you have many items in the Legend, it may be difficult to distinguish between similar colors. In the visual above, the legend colors for Suriname, Columbia, and Ecuador are very similar.
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Did you create a scatter chart and see only one data point that aggregates all the values on the X and Y axes? Or, your chart aggregates all the values along a single horizontal or vertical line? To fix this, add a field to the Details area to tell Power BI how to group the values. The field must be unique for each point you want to plot. For help, refer to the Power BI scatter and bubble chart tutorial.
Tree Map Charts
Tree maps can be very useful for giving a good overview of the relative size of different components that make up a whole -- especially when you can group them by categories. Any time I try to understand a new business, having a tree map of the main components can be very useful in knowing the overall distribution.
In the first chart below, you can see right away that Brazil makes up approximately half of South America’s GDP and that Venezuela and Argentina are roughly the same size.
If you want to have broader context and still have an idea of the impact of the top contributing countries, you can create visual hierarchies with category members (countries) nested inside regions. The second tree map gives us an idea, first and foremost, of the relative size of the regions and then, within each region, we can see which individual countries contribute the most. We see that there are three massive regions (Europe, Asia & North America) and within those we can easily see the top countries/regions.
The main limitation of a tree map is the limited ability to compare the different rectangles beyond the top ones. It is a good chart for an overview but column and bar chart are probably a better choice to have more precise idea of the relative size of different components.
For more information on tree maps, feel free to click on links below.
Other charts
Pie or Donut Charts
In general, bar/column/line charts will serve most purposes. It’s well understood that pie and donut charts are difficult for humans to interpret correctly, and in fact can often distort data. Avoid them where possible. Stephen Few has an excellent write up on the history and dangers in Save the Pies for Dessert
He does explain the one time where pie charts can be useful, when comparing part-to-whole relationships. But even this is rarely significantly-better than, say, a 100% stacked bar chart.
Another fun article (and animation) about pie charts can be found on the Darkhorse Analytics site.
Or read an opposing point of view, Why Tufte is flat-out wrong about pie charts
Radial Gauges & KPIs
Radial gauges seem like a good visual for indicating performance against a target, and they are very popular in executive dashboards. However, they suffer in two main ways. As with pie charts, it’s difficult to interpret the angle of the shaded area compared to the full 180 degree arc or target line. It also uses a lot of space to show a single metric.
KPIs show the value, status, goal, variance from the goal and trend in the same amount of space. The green coloring turns red if the target isn’t being met and can be yellow if some intermediate target is hit. It’s much simpler to read and interpret than the gauge.on types of visualizations and uses, review this USF created self-paced course: Best Practices for Creating Data Visualizations
Removing Visual Header for Non Visuals
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- Query name should not have spaces
- Avoid spaces when naming Columns and Measures
Security
Managed Roles
To define security roles, you can do the following.
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You cannot assign users to a role within Power BI Desktop. This is done within the Power BI service. You can enable dynamic security within Power BI Desktop by making use of the username() or userprincipalname() DAX functions and having the proper relationships configured.
Power BI RLS Process
To learn how to use the technique of the Power BI RLS Process we must explain briefly the Role Managing. Start following these steps:
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Manage security on your model
To manage security on your data model, you will want to do the following.
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You can only create or modify roles within Power BI Desktop.
Working with membersAdd members
You can add a member to the role by typing in the email address, or name, of the user, security group or distribution list you want to add. This member has to be within your organization. You cannot add Groups created within Power BI.
You can also see how many members are part of the role by the number in parenthesis next to the role name, or next to Members.
Remove members
You can remove members by selecting the X next to their name.
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• Jane did customize the content pack. The next time she opens the dashboard all tiles from the original content pack are gone, but tiles she pinned from other reports still appear. The associated reports and dataset are no longer available (and don't appear in her left navigation pane).
Data security
All distribution group members have the same permissions to the data as the content pack creator. The one exception to this is SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) on-premises tabular datasets. Because the reports and dashboards are connecting live to the on-premises SSAS model, the credentials of each individual distribution group member are used to determine the data he or she can access.
Creating APP for Shared Content SecurityApp workspaces
App workspaces are the places where you create apps, so to create an app, you first need to create the app workspace. If you’ve ever worked in a group workspace in Power BI, then app workspaces will be familiar. They’re the evolution of group workspaces – staging areas and containers for the content in the app.
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After workspaces have been created in O365, it will appear in the app in Power BI, too.
Distribute an app
When you’ve finished creating and perfecting the dashboards and reports in your app workspace, you package it all up as an app and distribute it.
- In the workspace, select the Publish app button in the upper right to start the process of sharing all the content in that workspace.
- First, on Details, fill in the description to help people find the app. You can set a background color to personalize it.
- Next, on Content, you see the content that’s going to be published as part of the app – everything that’s in that workspace. You can also set the landing page – the dashboard or report people will see first when they go to your app. You can choose None. Then they’ll land on a list of all the content in the app
- Last, on Access, decide who has access to the app: either everyone in your organization, or specific people or email distribution lists.
- When you select Finish, you see a message confirming it’s ready to publish.
- In the success dialog box, you can copy the URL that’s a direct link to this app and send it to the people you’ve shared it with.
The business users that you've distributed the app to can find it in two different ways. You can send them the direct link to the app, or they can search for it in Microsoft AppSource, where they see all the apps that they can access. Either way, after that whenever they go to Apps, they’ll see this app in their list.
Change your published app
After you publish your app, you may want to change or update it. You notice that when you open your app from Apps, even though you’re the one who published it, you can’t edit it – Edit Report is grayed out.
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- Open the app workspace that corresponds to the app.
Open the dashboard or the report. You see that you can make any changes you want.
The app workspace is your staging area, so your changes aren't pushed live to the app until you publish again. This lets you make changes without affecting the published apps.
- Go back to the app workspace list of contents and select Update app.
- Update Details, Content, and Access, if you need to, then select Update app.
The people you’ve distributed the app to automatically see the updated version of the app.
Unpublish an app
Any member of an app workspace can unpublish the app.
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This action uninstalls the app for everyone you've distributed it to, and they no longer have access to it. It doesn't delete the app workspace or its contents.
Annotate & share a tile, report, or visual in the mobile apps
Applies to:
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| iPhones | iPads | Android phones | Android tablets |
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You can share a tile from the Power BI mobile app for Windows 10 devices, too, but not annotate it.
Open a tile for annotating
Tap the tile to open it in focus mode.
Tap the annotate icon
in the upper-right corner of the tile.You're ready to annotate and share the tile.
Open a report for annotating
Open a report.
Tap the annotate icon
in the upper-right corner of the report.You're ready to annotate and share the report.
Open a visual for annotating
In a report, tap a visual, then tap the expand icon to open it in focus mode.
Tap the annotate icon
in the upper-right corner of the visual.You're ready to annotate and share the visual.
Annotate and share the tile, report, or visual
Here's how you annotate:
The annotation bar in iPhones and iPads
The annotation bar in Android devices
- To draw lines of different colors and thicknesses, tap the squiggly-line icon, choose a width and color, and draw.
- To type comments, tap the AA, choose the text size and color, and type.
- To paste stamps (like emoticons) on the tile, tap the smiley face, choose a color, and tap where you want them.
After annotating, tap Share in the upper-right corner.
Open your mail app, type the recipients' names, and modify the message, if you want.
The mail has an image, and a link to the specific tile, report, or visual.
Tap Send.
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- If you already have two or more datasets in Power BI with the same name as the Power BI Desktop file, publish could fail. Make sure you have only one dataset in Power BI with the same name. You can also rename the file and publish, creating a new dataset with same name as the file.
- If you rename or delete a column or measure, any visualizations you already have in Power BI with that field could be broken.
- Power BI ignores some format changes of existing columns. For example, if you change a column’s format from 0.25 to 25%.
- If you have a refresh schedule configured for your existing dataset in Power BI and you add new data sources to your file and then re-publish, you’ll have to sign into them in Manage Data Sources prior to the next scheduled refresh.
- When you republish a dataset published from Power BI Desktop and have a refresh schedule defined, a dataset refresh is initiated as soon as you republish.
Future Plans
Power BI Apps FAQHow are app workspaces different from group workspaces?
With this release, we have renamed all group workspaces to app workspaces. You can publish an app from any of these workspaces. The functionality remains on par with group workspaces for the most part. Over the next few months, we plan on the following enhancements to app workspaces:
- Creating app workspaces won't create corresponding entities in Office 365 like group workspaces do. So you can create any number of app workspaces without worrying about different Office 365 groups being created behind the scenes (you can still use an Office 365 group’s OneDrive for Business to store your files).
- Today you can add only individuals to the members and admin lists. Soon you'll be able to add multiple AD security groups or modern groups to these lists to allow for easier management.
How are apps different from organizational content packs?
Apps are an evolution and simplification of content packs, with a few major differences.
- After business users install a content pack, it loses its grouped identity: it's just a list of dashboards and reports interspersed with other dashboards and reports. Apps, on the other hand, maintain their grouping and identity even after installation. This makes it easy for business users to continue to navigate to them over time.
- You can create multiple content packs from any workspace, but an app has a 1:1 relationship with its workspace. We believe this makes apps easier to understand and maintain over the long run. See the roadmap section of the Power BI blog for more on how we plan to improve this area.
- Over time we plan to deprecate organizational content packs, so we recommend you create apps from now on.
What about read-only members in groups?
In groups, you can add read-only members who can only view the content. The main problem with this approach was that you couldn't add security groups as members. With apps, you can publish a read-only version of your app workspace to large audiences, including security groups. You can stage your changes to the dashboards and reports in the app without affecting end users. We recommend that you use apps in this way in the future. Over the long run, we plan to deprecate read-only members of workspaces as well.
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