Power BI KPI

KPI is a key performance indicator and in power bi, there are some specific requirements for this type of KPI visualization, the mandatory requirements are a base context that is used to compare a given value to a target concept which is also known as the threshold.

What is Power BI KPI?

The concept of having KPI in Power BI Dashboards serves in smart ways to analyze the data. Every organization should have an eye on their progress towards the set of standards at the start of every financial or fiscal year. So tracking how business is moving towards its set of targets is the duty of every analyst in the company. Using Power BI visualization we can create this visual to see the real impact of the Target vs Actual report. We will see simple data of every month’s Target vs Actual report to build KPI visual in Power BI.

Examples to Build KPI Visual in Power BI

To build KPI visual we need sort of data first. Below is the simple data you can use to build KPI visuals.

Copy and paste the data directly to Power BI or you can copy the data to excel file and then import to Power BI as Excel file reference. So you can download the excel workbook template from the below link which is used for the example of Power BI KPI Visual.

I have directly uploaded the excel file to Power BI and under the “Data” section I can see this table.

Example #1 – Simple KPI

Go to the “Report” view and click on “KPI” visual. For this, we have three sets of data fields to be inserted i.e. “Indicator”, “Trend Axis”, and “Target Goals”.

Indicator: This is nothing but what are the actual values that indicate against the targeted goals.

Trend Axis: This will be our month names or number which will not show in the horizontal axis.

Target Goals: This doesn’t require any special introduction, this will be our target column against the indicator.

• Now select the inserted power bi KPI Visual. Drag and drop “Fiscal Month” to “Trend Axis”, “Actual” column to “Indicator” and “Target” column to “Target Goals”.

• This should create a Power BI KPI chart like the below one.

So, our KPI graph is ready to read. This is a built-in KPI chart. Apart from this, we can install various other charts from the market place of Microsoft.

Example #2 – Dual KPI

Follow the below steps to install custom visuals from the market place.

Step 1: Click on three horizontal dots under visualizations and choose “Import from market place”.

Step 2: Now it will ask you to sing in, you need to use any school or organization id to sign in. If you don’t have an account it will ask you to sign up.

Step 3: Once you sign in it will take you to market place from where we can import custom visuals. You just have to click on the “Add” button to keep adding to your visualization list. Here we have added “Dual KPI” Visual.

After adding we can see these visuals under visualization list. Now let’s create a “Dual KPI” chart to show the target vs actual graph.

• Insert Dual KPI chart visualization.

• Now drag and drop the fields as shown below.

• So, our Power BI Dual KPI chart will look like this.

The beauty about this chart is when we hover our cursor it will show respective month target and actual values also the variance %.

• Here, I have placed my cursor on “September” month and I could see KPI numbers for this month.

Like this, we can create KPI charts in Power BI software to visualize target vs actual data.

Note: Power BI KPI Dashboard file can also be downloaded from the link below and the final output can be viewed.

Things to Remember

• KPI requires proper data to create Power BI KPI visuals.
• Default KPI often misleads the reader because it doesn’t show the target axis line.
• You can import custom visuals from market place to create a different kind of KPI charts or visuals.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Power BI KPI. Here we discuss how to build KPI and Dual KPI visual in Power BI Dashboard with the help step by step example. You can learn more about Power BI from the following articles –

• Data Modeling to get Power BI Reports
• Reports in Power BI
• Course for Excel Power User
• Power BI Beginners Tutorial