Data categories

Last year brought us another interesting Power BI Desktop feature. When importing tables into a data model, it is possible to specify a data category for the selected columns. Choosing a category can accurately determine what data is in the table. This way we get some new features, e.g. to include a link to a site or an image describing the products within the table.

Success indicators

Conditional formatting is an option that has been gradually added to Table and Matrix visual. Now we can safely say that Power BI Desktop has almost everything we used in Excel to build the reports where we applied this option. As of July 2019, conditional formatting also supports icon sets, and in the text below you will be able to learn how to use all of these options.

Manual data entry

PowerBI Desktop allows you to obtain data from different sources. They are being acquired into tables between which we later create relationships to create the Data Model. Sometimes it is necessary to have temporary table that needs to be used to create a specific report. To create such a table and manually fill it, you can use the Enter Data option.

Fields for visualization

Various visuals, whether they are tables, cards or charts, have different fields that can be used to adjust their look within the report. We perform this action by dragging dimensions and measures to these fields. In this “recipe” you will be shown usage of fields, depending of common visuals, and how to use them to form quality reports.

Power BI Desktop visuals

Purpose of PowerBI Desktop application is to create reports on a local machine and publish them in the cloud for users who can see them anytime, at any moment, by Internet browser on a PC or a mobile device. Managers need to get clear, simple and visually nice reports. It seems that PowerBI meets all given criteria. In a text that follows I will describe various ways to create reports in PowerBI Desktop.