Discover how to make your visuals in Microsoft Power BI more powerful, meaningful and easier to read.
Originally published in 2017 User Group Magazines
The more we learn about Microsoft Power BI, the more we want to build reports that help us run our businesses better. We want reports that point out what needs our focus and attention to improve our success, AND we want to know where we can capitalize on what is working right for us. Selecting the right visual and formatting (the visual) are essential for improving the value of any dashboard/report. Let’s review how we can make a few visuals more meaningful and eye-catching; not just to make them prettier, but to make them easier to read and more powerful.
Avoid the Pie
I’m not saying this as part of my perpetual diet plan. Pie charts may look cool, but it’s very hard to get a good visual. In the following two images, I put a red square around the same three pieces of data. The pie makes it difficult to tell which of the three is the largest and which is the smallest. The clustered column chart next to it makes it much easier.
By default, the clustered column chart will appear with all green columns. To edit the colors, select the clustered column chart visual and open formatting on the Visualizations pane. Open the Data Colors area, and change Show all to On. Change each individual color to whatever you want them to be.
Take a Card
Sometimes the best visual is simply a number. Often while presenting, I talk about the feature that newer vehicles have that show you the number of miles you can travel with your current amount of gas, at your current rate of consumption. I love seeing that I can travel 71 miles rather than thinking, “I have two bars left, an 11.9-gallon tank, and I usually get 42 miles a gallon.” I have a Hybrid, which means I get great gas mileage, but I still cannot do that kind of math in my head while driving! So, show me a single number. FYI: This type of visual can be seen in Power BI on the Apple Watch.
I can literally see my bank balance every morning on my watch! When the card visual is selected, the default is for the number to round automatically, as you see above. However, when I am looking at something like my customer balance, I want 
to see the actual, unrounded amount. To display the amount with no rounding, select the visual and open formatting on the Visualizations pane. Open the Data Label area and change Display from Auto to None.
Under One Condition
If you are like me, you love playing with conditional formatting in Microsoft Excel. Power BI has conditional formatting as well. Below is a simple table in the Power BI Desktop. This visual shows my customer list and the balance of each customer. I use conditional formatting to help see the higher balances in green, the lowest in red, and everything in the middle as yellow, with shade variations of these colors for the amounts in-between. How did I do this?
To set conditional formatting, select the visual and click on the drop-down arrow for the amount field for which you want to apply conditional formatting; select Conditional formatting.
In the Conditional formatting window that opens, select the color for the Lowest value and the Highest value. If you want a middle color, select the Diverging box and select the Middle value. Click OK.
Where in the World?
When using the map visual, you can use data that is either a full or partial address, or you can use longitude and latitude. Obviously, longitude and latitude will provide the most accurate map plotting, but the address works well, too. It is, however, a
good idea to define which part of the geographical data a field represents. This can be done with data modeling right in the Power BI Desktop.
Open the data view by clicking on the data icon on the pane on the far-left side of the Power BI Desktop. If you have more than one data source, select the source
with the geographical fields on the right so that the data set appears on the canvas in the middle.
In my case, I’ll define the street address, city, state, zip code, and country. I’ll start with the street address by clicking on the field, highlighting the entire column.
I’ll click on the Modeling tab, select Data Category, and choose the field Address. I’ll repeat these steps for city, state, zip code, and country.
You’ll notice that all my geography fields now have a globe next to the field in the field list, indicating that they have been categorized as a geographical field, making them much more accurate on map visuals.
Summary
This article outlines a few minor tweaks to help make your visuals better. Better visuals, that are easier to read, mean better information. And better information means more success for you! Consider joining the Microsoft Power BI User Group to increase the value you currently receive from your membership. Visit www.pbiusergroup.com to sign up for free!
