Fundamentals of Report Designing
Visuals are the building blocks of the Power BI reports. Data means very little if audiences and end users can’t comprehend its meaning. Visualizations are a great way to capture, engage and educate audiences about the analysis you just made. There are around 30 core visuals in Power BI, all of which are available in the visualizations Pane on the right.
The following are some of the visuals that are available in Power BI:
- Area charts (layered and stacked)
- Bar and column charts
- Cards
- Decomposition tree
- Doughnut Chart
- Funnel Charts
- Gauge charts
- Key Influencers chart
- KPIs chart
- Line charts
- Maps – Basic, ArcGIS and Azure Maps
- Filled maps
- Matrix
- Pie chart
- QnA chart
- Scatter Chart
- Smart Narrati
and many more!
Power BI custom Visuals
In addition to the core visuals available on the visualization pane, you can also download visuals from AppSource. You can also create your own custom visuals that match you/your organizations requirements.
Power BI visuals are packaged in. pbiviz. Anyone can create a custom visual and package it as. pbviz.
Applying and customizing a report theme
Users can apply a report theme by going to the view tab in the top ribbon, Power BI offers many different themes which can be customized as per the users’ need. We can customize the theme according to organization specific colors and fonts. A user can also save the customized theme file as a JSON file. Which they can later import to create new reports or dashboards.
Configure Conditional Formatting
Conditional formatting allows us to specify certain cell colours based on the values contained within the cells.
Following is a Step-by-Step guide on how to implement Conditional Formatting on your visuals:-
1. Select the Table or Matrix visual you want to apply formatting to.
2. Click on the arrow next to the column or field on which you want to apply conditional formatting. This brings up the formatting options.
3. From the dropdown, you can choose between several types of conditional formatting
- Background Color: Changes the cell’s background color based on the value in the cell.
- Font Color: Changes the text color based on cell values.
- Data Bars: Adds data bars within the cells to show magnitude visually.
- Icons: Displays icons like arrows or circles based on the values in the cell.
- URL: Converts text to a clickable hyperlink.
4. Apply Background Color (for this example): If you choose Background Color, a dialog box will appear
5. When selecting Rules, you specify the minimum and maximum ranges or set specific conditions for the colors to apply
Once you’ve defined your rules or color scales, click OK. The conditional formatting will be applied to the selected column in the visual.
Apply Slicing or Filtering
Slicers are interactive filters within your Power BI reports which can be used to dynamically filter the data as per the users need. There are many different types of slicers available in Power BI, these include: – Numeric Range Slicers, Basic Vertical checkbox slicer, image and shape slicers, Hierarchy slicers and Relative time slicers.
Additionally, you can also add filters on visuals, pages and reports. The filters can be configured using the filter pane.
Configure the report page
You can configure the page level settings by clicking on the blank area within a canvas, you can then click on Format your page icon next to the add data to your visual icon in the visualizations pane.
You have the option to configure page level settings such as canvas settings, canvas background, and to modify the appearance and settings for filter pane and filter cards.
Basic Principles of designing an Analytical report
1. Identifying the audience: Identifying the audience and their requirements is crucial in report design as it helps tailor the report to meet the needs of its consumers.
The three main audiences are:
- Executives: Mainly focus on high-level, long-term decisions.
- Analysts: Dive deep into data for insights.
- Information Workers: Use reports to support daily tasks and operational decisions. Understanding these groups ensures the report is both efficient and useful.
2. Placement: Generally, you would place the most important information on the top left corner of the page and then arrange all the visuals from left to right and top to bottom according to importance. Arrange the reports vertically and horizontally in a way that aligns with each other and looks pleasing to the eye. Rule of thirds can be applied which states that the visual layout should be divided in an imaginary grid of 9.
3. Balance: Balance refers to the weight of the objects in the report. Balance can be achieved by keeping both the sides of the page with equal visual weight. You can consider using the golden ratio to achieve a balance between different visuals on your page.
4. Proximity: Proximity defines the closeness of the objects next to each other. When there is multiple objects, you can consider using methods to keep them visually separate.
5. Contrast and Repetition: You can make use of contrast to highlight certain parts of the reports. Repetition of themes, colours, alignments and margins creates a consistent report which is easy to understand.
6. Space: Ensure that your report is spaced properly and there is not a lot of noise within the report and the visuals are not clustered. Make sure that there is sufficient space between objects, around report objects.
7. Margins: Margins include the border size or edge around the visuals, it’s up to report developer to keep the margins consistent from left to right and from top to bottom.
8. Page and visual size: The page size can be modified as per the number of visuals to be included, and the report size can be optimized accordingly. Generally, the more important the visual the larger the size.
9. Implicit sections and Explicit Sections: Implied sections refer to the visual alignment of objects in way that implies certain sections without them being explicitly defined. Explicit sections within your report are explicitly defined with use of background, colours, margins and spacing.
10. Consistency: Keep the visual and report layout consistent and uniform across all the pages. This means using the same font, report themes, colours , consistent spacing and alignment.
