Sparkline is a chart that is located inside the cell and shows the change in value over a given period of time, and is suitable for observing trends. It can be a Column or Line chart. This way of presenting data has been in Excel since version 2010, and has recently become available within the Power BI Desktop reporting platform. In the text that follows, you will find out how it is added and changed …
Power Query allows you, whether you use Excel or Power BI, to connect to numerous data sources, retrieve, transform, and use “refined” data to create reports. On that occasion, each step in the transformation process is recorded and, when you refresh the link to the source, the steps are repeated in the given order and you get tables of identical structure. What is a purpose of Dataflows?
It is often possible to see one or more points on the visuals that deviate from the normal distribution of the series. Recently, Power BI Desktop was given the Analyze option (at the time of publishing this text it is still in the experimental version) which allows insight into what is happening with the data, comparing the shares or absolute values of the series.
If we analyze the chart visuals, we can often notice points with disturbances on them. These can be e.g. days when unexpected sales values occurred, completely contrary to the planned trend. Power BI Desktop, in the visuals’ Analytics section, now has the Find Anomalies option that allows it to find points on the chart that are inconsistent with trends and point to them.
When creating a report, the rule that less is better often applies. That is, instead of displaying everything with one visual, it is often a better tactic to create several smaller ones so that, by applying filters, you choose which of the data will be displayed. From now on, this procedure has been further simplified by introducing the Small Multiples option. It allows you to split one chart into several smaller ones based on a given dimension.