Power BI Visuals

What are Power BI Visuals?

For the visualization of data there are some inbuilt visuals in Power Bi and some custom visuals as well. Custom visuals are user-defined where user can use own creativity to how to present a data, for example, we can use lines and dots in a flashing and floating manner to display the changes in the data in certain period of time.

Power BI visuals are the type of charts, graphs, tables, cards, etc. available with Power BI to visualize our data.

In this Power BI visualization box, we can see “Stacked Bar ChartStacked Bar ChartThe stacked bar chart in Excel represents data in the shape of bars, with the bars representing different segments or categories for comparison. A stacked bar chart is used to compare different types of data in terms of their values.read more, Stacked Column ChartStacked Column ChartA stacked column chart in Excel is a column chart in which multiple series of data representations of various categories are stacked over each other. The stacked series are vertical, and comparing multiple data series is easy, but as the number of data series increases, so does the complexity of representation.read more, Clustered Column Chart, Clustered Bar ChartClustered Bar ChartA clustered bar chart represents data virtually in horizontal bars in series, similar to clustered column charts. These charts are easier to make. Still, they are visually complex.read more, 100% Stacked Bar Chart, 100% Stacked Column Chart, Line ChartLine ChartLine Graphs/Charts in Excels are visuals to track trends or show changes over a given period & they are pretty helpful for forecasting data. They may include 1 line for a single data set or multiple lines to compare different data sets. read more, Area ChartArea ChartThe area chart in Excel is a line chart that shows the impact and changes in various data series over time by separating them with lines and presenting them in different colors. The line chart is used to create this graph.read more, Stacked Area Chart, Line & Stacked Column Chart, Line & Clustered Column Chart, Ribbon Chart, Waterfall Chart, Scatter Chart, Pie Chart, Donut Chart, Treemap, Map, Filled Map, Funnel ChartFunnel ChartFunnel charts in Excel are used to represent data behavior at each stage and as the values decrease, the chart takes on the shape of a funnel. This funnel chart feature is only available in Microsoft Office 2019 or later versions.read more, Gauge Chart, Card, Multi-row Card, KPI, Slicer, Table, Matrix, etc.

Now we will see how to use some of these visuals and format the same for better visualization.

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You can download the excel data from below to use the same for building visuals. It is better if you can download and practice along with us as we show them.

How to Create Custom Visuals in Power BI?

I have already uploaded the data from excel to Power BI, and it looks like this as of now.

Now the first Power bi visual we will practice is “Cards.”

Visual #1 – Cards

Cards are there to showcase the selected column numbers. Now we will show how many responses are there in this employment survey.

For this first, choose the “CARD” visual.

Now from fields, choose the “Row” column to get the total responses.

Since the cards are the current selection, we can easily see the numbers on the card, but the moment you unselect the card, this is how it looks like.

In this, we don’t see that there is a card visual for this, so now we need to design this visualization for the betterment of the presentation.

• First, we will add heading for this card because, as of now, we don’t see any heading for this card. Select the card and go to the formatting section.

• In this section, click on “Format” to see all the formatting options.

• Since we need to add “Title” to the card, click on the “Title” option. Under this, enter the “Title” of the card as “Total Responses,” font color as “Black,” background-color as “Pink,” alignment as “Center,” Text Size as 20, font family as “Verdana.”

Now we will have a card heading like the below one.

• Since we have added “Title” to the card, make “Category Label” as “Off.”

• Now choose the background option and fill the color as identical to the title background color and make the transparency as 50%.

• Now apply “Border” to the card, as shown below.

Visual #2  – Donut Chart

As we all know, how to create a Donut chart in excel, but this time in Power BI visuals, you need not break your sweat, so for the data of “Education and their respective salaries,” we will create a “Donut” chart.

• Select Donut Chart first.

• Now from the filed column, click on “Education” and “Salary USD” to create a donut chart.

Similarly, we need to play around with this chart to make it look beautiful.

• Add Border to the chart, as shown below.

• Now add background color, as shown below.

• You can change the “Title” of the chart and make formatting, as shown below.

• Switch Off “Data Labels”

• Add “Legends.”

• For “Legend,” do below formatting to make it look beautiful.

If you wish to play around with the inner circle size of the donut chart, you can do this under “Shapes.”

• If the inner circle is zero, it will look like the “Pie” Chart.

Like this, you can increase or decrease the size of the inner circle to fit in your needs.

Visual #3 – Table

Using Table visual, we can create a summary table. For example, if you want to create a summary of “Job Title,” wise number of responses, choose “Table” from visuals.

Now from fields, choose “Job Title” and “Rows” to create a table like this.

Add Title to the chart as “Job Title-wise Responses Summary” and design the heading.

Like this, we can create a power Bi visualizations to design the dashboards.

Things to Remember

• Based on the data, you can design your visuals.
• You can insert custom visualization in power bi as well.
• For all the visuals, formatting is an important technique. You need to learn formatting methods to add value to your dashboard.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Power BI Visuals. Here we learn how to create custom visuals with Microsoft power bi along with examples of Cards, Donut Charts & Tables, etc. You can learn more about data visualization from the following articles –

• Power BI Date Formatting
• Steps to Create a Power BI Report
• Power BI Tutorial
• Course on Excel for Power User