Are you looking for inspiration for your next Power BI report? We have got you covered. In this blog, we will discuss 10 powerful Power BI Dashboard Examples to try in 2022 and kickstart the process.  

Today, Big Data is an asset for any business. However, if a business has large data and cannot process or segregate it to generate revenue, it would simply be a waste. In such cases, these data sets can cause more harm than good.  

Did you know that a survey conducted by Forbes in 2018 revealed that 95% of businesses direly need to manage unstructured data? The figures (probably) have increased by now! In another study, more than 85% of participants said that preparing data was important for them. In case you or your organization/business has a similar problem, we have a solution—Power BI Dashboards.  

 “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”- Peter Drucker (Austrian-American Management Consultant, Educator, and Author) 

 Power BI Dashboards can be of great help to help you understand data in a simpler way. 

List of Top 10 Power BI Dashboard Examples

1. Customer Segmentation Dashboard

Source – tableau

One of the popular Power BI Dashboard Examples is the Customer Segmentation Dashboard. It is mainly used by businesses working with other organizations or companies. In fact, senior managers can see the revenue generated by certain clients and their profitability.  

In this dashboard, you can see top performers as well as poor performers. Additionally, it offers details on the types of products that appeal to certain customer demographics. It also includes the sales share of each product category.  

2. Finance Dashboard

Source – Datapine

Another popular Power BI Dashboard example is the Finance Dashboard. Using this, organizations can create an executive-level report to showcase their financial insights. It delivers high-level insights that enable users to quickly skim the report for executive-level users. Users also have the choice to go into granular data. ‍ 

Purpose of the dashboard: 

The dashboard gives a broad overview of the company’s financial performance throughout time. Users can also explore financial performance according to area and product category. Users can identify financial patterns and regions of over/underperformance in both of these emphasis areas. These preliminary insights can then be used by users to see where to focus.  

Important insights from the dashboard:  

• KPIs: Sales, Profit, Orders, Customers, and Quantity: Gives a quick overview of the company’s financial situation. 
• Area Revenue over time (12 months) graph 
• aids users in determining the seasonality of the business 
• Users can better understand their financial performance by area and category using this stacked bar chart of revenue by region, divided by product category. 
• Table – Sub-Category Performance: This Shows information about each product’s performance at 100% The revenue-to-profit ratio in a stacked bar chart gives a clear picture of their financial situation based on a standard accounting statistic. 

3. HR Dashboard

Source – Datapine

HR Dashboard is another popularly used Power BI Dashboard Example. It is designed for HR managers who want to understand workforce demographics, track new hires, and guarantee they’re adhering to industry diversity guidelines.  

Purpose of the dashboard: 

The HR team can generate high-level insights, such as average income, average tenure, and average age, to better understand employees These insights enable HR to more effectively include workers in upcoming business decisions. The results help the HR staff in carefully designing a diverse workforce that supports the organization’s objective. 

Important insights from the dashboard: 

• KPI’s – No. Employees, Av. Salary, Av. Duration at Company, Av. Age: To better understand the average employee profile 
• Area Chart – New Employees per year: To measure the rate of recruitment 
• Bar Chart – No. of employees by region: To uncover the geographical distribution of employees 
• Table – Latest employees: To keep track of new employees 

4. Customer Analysis Dashboard

 The Customer Analysis Dashboard is most useful for businesses that want to focus more on their customers. It offers valuable insight into profit for regional customers and product sales. 

Purpose of the Dashboard: 

This dashboard can be used in almost every industry where managers and business leaders can use it to analyze business growth. They can even make valuable business decisions to increase revenue, evaluate the profit distribution across customers, and drive profitability. 

The dashboard offers information on various factors that can be helpful for businesses handling a lot of data. Some of these factors are the overall profits and sales, past and current year sales, and percentage growth. For example, a company can view data for several years by using various filters. Additionally, this dashboard can provide managers and owners with insightful data. 

 Important insights from the dashboard:  

• Product-specific sales analysis 
• channel-specific sales and profitability 
• customer-specific growth and profit figures 
• customers can compare overall sales, profit margins, product performance, and client segmentation using charts.  

5. Logistics Dashboard

Source – Datapine

The Logistics Dashboard is helpful for logistics managers to better understand the movement of commodities. They can derive more insights from the dashboard through reports that offer a view by product, delivery mode, and area.   

‍Purpose of the dashboard:  

The prime purpose of the dashboard is to assist logistics managers with the flow of products. Moreover, it can assist them in allocating resources to satisfy delivery criteria and maintain an efficient operation by identifying locations of high or low product flow. Overall, by more effectively using its resources, the organization becomes more efficient, essentially saving time and money. 

Important insights from the dashboard:  

• KPI’s – No. Order, No. Quantity, No. Customers: To provide context relating to the scale of the operation. 
• Decomposition Tree – Flow of orders by category and sub-category: To prioritize each products shipping process. 
• Shape Map – Orders by state: Helps managers allocate resources based on demand. 
• Matrix – Order by month, by shipping mode: Helps users better allocate resources throughout the year and prioritize shipping method development. 

#6. Social Media Monitoring & Analytics Dashboard

Source – geckboard

Social Media Monitoring and Analytics Dashboard is great for managers, marketers, and agencies. This monitoring and analytics tool can help your product quality, improve sales, and crisis control. 

Purpose of the dashboard:  

The tool can also help businesses and organizations understand their audience’s opinions about the product. This dashboard shows data focused on different aspects of social media on monthly basis, including web sources, discussion intensity, online influencers, special categories, sentiment analysis, quotes and geolocation, and many more.  

 Its discussion intensity tab offers critical insight such as mentions on social media, total reach, and much more. You can also find a chart that shows influencers by impact, volume, and amplification. 

Important insights from the dashboard:  

• In addition to the percentage of good, negative, and neutral mentions, users can view their own Mentions in Sentiment Analysis by Day, Hour, and Total Mentions. 
• The channels through which the mentions came can be seen in web sources, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, photos, and videos. 
• This Power BI Dashboard Example may be used by businesses to view good and bad remarks that are especially based on geolocation, including regions and cities. 
• Under the online influencer section, you can locate influencers organized by volume and impact according to the months of the year. Whatever the breakdown—positive, bad, or neutral—it always reveals about the follower. 

7. Marketing Dashboard

Source – Datapine

The Marketing Dashboard is another popularly used Power BI Dashboard Example. Power BI allows organizations to correlate marketing analytics from various sources, thus eliminating the possibility of false positives in the team. By establishing connections with services like  MailChimp, Google Analytics, and others, Power BI enables to quickly generate dashboards. 

Purpose of the Dashboard:  

The Dashboard helps marketing teams identify trends and patterns within a set of market research carried out with customers. It can provide a visual representation of their research, allowing them to spot correlations between various customer data points. These insights can help the team understand their customers and therefore learn how to better accommodate them.  

‍Important insights from the Dashboard:  

• ‍Helps identify the profile of their more lucrative customers. 
• Helps better understand the customer demographics. 
• Helps understand customer portfolio, as well the more lucrative job types. 
• Helps target future customers, as they know which customer type is more valuable. 

8. Sales Scorecard Dashboard

Source – Microsoft

Businesses need to contently track their sales for different purposes. But, with too much data, it might get a little hectic to keep track of everything. 

The sales Scorecard dashboard is a simple answer to several different questions. It helps business organizations track their sales and answer all the critical questions about sales performance. 

Purpose of the Dashboard:  

This dashboard leverages several Power BI elements to build KPIs that can provide crucial and valuable insights to help sales managers. These Power BI elements include treemaps, cards, shapes, and DAX. 

Important insights from the Dashboard:  

• Can provide businesses vital insights into the areas it is selling per state, product, and region 
• Offers the ability to view comparisons of sales and profit against previous ones.  
• Can help put sales performance into perspective 
• Managers can view the cost components of the business driving profits or losses 
• A dashboard can be filtered based on the year and business segments 

9. Executive Insights Dashboard

Source – Datapine

Executive Insights Dashboard sheds light on business performance and its overall health. This dashboard is helpful for business organizations as it gives them the ability to explore company-wide data-driven decision-making. 

Purpose of the Dashboard:  

Executive Insights dashboard allows businesses an opportunity to view their business data from more than one angle based on its attributes including products, country, year, order type and many more.  

Important insights from the Dashboard:  

• Leverages different custom visuals for analysis such as line charts, pie charts, donut charts, and others 
• Gives business organizations several filters that can help them tell stories about business elements such as total profit and revenue.  
• Managers, marketers, and other users can use it to gain crucial insight into metrics such as: profit margin, average per order quantity, YOY percentage change in total profit, top five products by total profit, quantity, and revenue

10. Attendance Tracker Dashboard

Source – adniasolutions

The last to be on our list of popular Power BI Dashboard Examples is the Attendance Tracker Dashboard. The dashboard helps business administrators track the attendance pf employees across the different departments. 

Purpose of the Dashboard:  

This Power BI Dashboard Example can increase engagement between key stakeholders and drives critical conversations. Stakeholders of any business organization can increase their attendance and improve performance with the reports from this dashboard in different sectors. 

Important insights from the Dashboard:  

• Allows various features, for instance, it shows the Abssight into trends and goals 
• The chart offers a predicted range for the future.  
• Shows data about opportunities in business to help administrators target the most critical work 
• Provides crucial brochure makers insight into relevant information about employees on weekly basis. 

With this data, business administrators can reach out to employees on an individual basis and increase their productivity. 

FAQs on Power BI Dashboard Examples:

Conclusion: Purpose of Power BI Dashboard 

We hope this blog summarized various Power BI Dashboard Examples that can be incorporated for businesses and organizations. The above-listed Power BI Dashboard Examples can be replicated and used for several purposes across multiple industries. Now that we have explored various examples, we cannot help but ponder the different purposes Power BI Dashboard can be used for.  

Power BI is a powerful data visualization tool used to track marketing, sales, human resource analytics, KPIs, inventory, and many more. Many teams can collaborate on the same data and reports while simultaneously sharing insights across applications. The dashboard allows users to connect with more than multiple data sources for analysis. Business owners and managers can promote valuable and crucial insights across departments while maintaining data accuracy, consistency, and security. 

However, while selecting the most powerful BI dashboard tool it is always best for businesses to not jump into a very advanced tool. The reason is simple- “Learning curves can be steep and might require you more resources to just get up and running.” 

We all know now that with Power BI Dashboard businesses can create intuitive dashboards and reports. The visualization can help them both simplify their data and uncover deep hidden insights. The dashboard provides insights into business performance and answers several questions. Hence, businesses can best utilize it to make data-driven decisions and put the business in the driver’s seat. But businesses should always remember that, though the tool is only part of the equation to create a data visualization, designers should also consider other aspects of it. 

Also Read : The Importance of Internet of Things (IoT) : Pros, Cons, and Opinions

Anwesha Mishra

Anwesha has been a creative writer for a while. Currently, on her pursuit of tech writing, she is diving into the realms of technology to produce better content on the forever-changing world of technology. In her free time, you’ll find her humming tunes of her favourite shows or reading a book.

The post Top 10 Power BI Dashboard Examples For 2022 appeared first on Tech Research Online.

Business Intelligence or BI has proven to be essential in helping companies boost their productivity on massive scales. With that said, Power BI helps manage all facets of a company, be it logistics or human resources or customer relations, in a rather seamless manner. If that term did not ring a bell, this blog will help you understand what is Power BI and what is Power BI used for.  

Before we understand Power BI and its various verticals, let us learn what is BI. (Keep reading till the end to find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions on Power BI.) 

# What is Business Intelligence? 

BI or Business Intelligence is a technology-driven method. It helps analyze data and provides actionable information that helps corporate executives, business managers, and others make informed business decisions. Basically, BI is a set of concepts, systems, and technology that converts raw data into useful information. It is a suite of software and services that helps transform data into actionable intelligence and knowledge.  

Speaking of its influence, BI directly impacts an organization’s strategic, tactical and operational business decisions. It supports fact-based decision-making by using historical data instead of assumptions and gut feelings. BI tools perform data analysis and create reports, dashboards, maps, graphs and charts to provide detailed intelligence to users about the nature of the business.  

For the functioning of an organization, business intelligence plays a vital role in its operations as well as development as it helps 

• • Create KPI based on past data 
  • Identify and set benchmarks for varied processes 
  • Identify market trends and spot business problems that need addressing 
  • Helps with data visualization that enhances data quality, thus enhancing the quality of decision making 

BI systems can be used by large enterprises as well as by small and medium-sized enterprises.  

Now that we have learned what a business intelligence system is, let us learn what Power BI is. 

What is Microsoft Power BI? 

Power BI is an interactive data visualization software product that primarily focuses on business intelligence. It is a part of the Microsoft Power Platform. Power BI is basically a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to convert unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive and interactive insights. In such cases, data may be input by reading directly from a database, webpage, or structured files such as spreadsheets, CSV, XML and JSON.  

Power BI is a business intelligence platform that provides non-technical business users with tools for aggregating, analyzing, visualizing, and sharing data. For users familiar with Microsoft Excel, it offers a fairly intuitive user interface. Moreover, its integration with other Microsoft products makes it a versatile self-service tool that only requires a little training upfront.  

In other words, Power BI is a business intelligence and data visualization tool that is mostly used for converting data from various other data sources into interactive dashboards and analysis reports. It also offers cloud-based services for interactive visualizations with a simple interface for end-users to help them create their own reports and dashboards.  

There are various versions of the Power BI available. These include desktop, service-based (SaaS) and mobile Power BI apps that are used for different platforms. The tool provides multiple software connectors and services for business intelligence purposes.  

“Connect to and visualize any data using the unified, scalable platform for self-service and enterprise business intelligence (BI) that’s easy to use and helps you gain deeper data insight.” – Microsoft 

To summarize it, you can connect with the following data sources using Power BI connectors:  

• • Files (e.g. excel .xlsx, .pdf, .csv, .xml, .json) 
  • Data Bases (e.g. MS SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, others) 
  • Folders (cloud-based e.g. SharePoint and locally-based) 
  • Azure Services (Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake, others) 
  • Online Services (e.g. Microsoft Exchange, Dynamics 365, Salesforce Objects, Google Analytics) 
  • Other Sources (e.g. websites, OData feed, ODBC, Active Directory, others) 
  • Indirect connection via other services (e.g. Microsoft Azure Data Factory) 

The data is processed and transformed with Power BI queries to the apparent data model. The data objects required to be a part of a Power BI report are created in the form of measures, calculated columns and parameters. So, how was Power BI developed? 

History of Microsoft Power BI 

The Microsoft Power BI was originally created by Theirry D’Hers and Amir Netz of the SQL Server Reporting Services Team at Microsoft. It was originally designed by Ron George in the summer of 2010 under a project named ‘Project Crescent’ that was initially available for download in 2011. Moreover, it was initially bundled with SQL Server Codename Denali.  

In 2013, it was renamed ‘Power BI’ and was later unveiled by Microsoft in Office 365. Its first release was based on the Microsoft Excel-based add-ins, which included Power Query, Power Pivot and Power View. Over time, Microsoft added various additional features such as Questions and Answers, enterprise-level data connectivity and security options via Power BI Gateways.  

In 2015, the Power BI was first unveiled in front of the general public. Later in the same year, Microsoft announced that it had acquired the Canadian company, Datazen, to “complement our Power BI, our cloud-based business analytics service, rounding out our mobile capabilities for customers who need a mobile BI solution implemented on-premises and optimized for SQL Server.” In fact, most of the visuals in Power BI started life as Datazen visuals.  

Further, in February of 2019, Gartner.com confirmed Microsoft as a leader in its ‘2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platform’ due to the capabilities of the Power BI platform. The achievement emerged as the 12th consecutive year of recognition of Microsoft as a leading vendor in the Magic Quadrant category (3 years prior to the creation of Power BI).  

What is Power BI Used For?  

Microsoft’s Power BI is primarily used to find insights into an organization’s data. The tool can help connect disparate data sets, transform and clean the data into a data model and further create charts or graphs to provide visuals of the data. All of these aspects can be shared with other Power BI users within the organization.  

The data models created using Power BI can be used in various ways for organizations. These include narrating stories through charts and data visualizations, examining questionable scenarios within the data, and many more. The reports generated can answer questions in real-time and help with forecasting to ensure departments fulfill their business metrics.  

Additionally, Power BI also offers executive dashboards for administrators and/or managers. As a result, it helps the management to provide more insights into how departments are functioning.  

Although Power BI is a self-service BI tool that delivers data analytics to employees, it is mostly used by data analysts and business intelligence professionals who create the data models before disseminating reports throughout the organization. However, users who do not hail from an analytical background can still navigate Power BI and create reports. The tool is used by department representatives and management, with reports and forecasts created to aid sales and marketing reps. Meanwhile, it also provides data for management on how the department or individual employees are progressing toward their goals. Additionally, the Power BI provides an admin portal for administrators to help configure its implementation as well as its usage monitoring and licenses.  

To summarize its usage and importance, Power BI helps in the below-mentioned aspects:  

• • Pre-built dashboards and reports for SaaS Solutions 
  • Power BI allows real-time dashboard updates 
  • Offers Secure and reliable connection to data sources in the cloud or on-premises 
  • Offers quick deployment, hybrid configuration as well as a secure environment 
  • Allows data exploration using natural language query 
  • Offers feature for dashboard visualization regularly updated with the community 

What are the Key Features of Power BI? 

Since its release, Microsoft has added a plethora of data analytics features to the Power BI. To date, the tech firm continues to do so. In fact, its most stable release (2.91.383.0) was updated in March 2021. However, some of the most important features of Power BI include:  

• • Artificial Intelligence where users can access image recognition and text analytics in Power BI, create machine learning models through automated machine learning capabilities and integrate with Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning.  
  • Hybrid Development Support provides built-in connectors that allow the Power BI tools to connect with various data sources from various vendors like Microsoft, Salesforce, and others.  
  • Quick Insights allow users to create subsets of data and automatically applies analytics to the derived information.  
  • Power BI’s Common data model support enables the use of a standardized and extensible collection of data schemas such as entities, attributes and relationships.  
  • Microsoft Cortana’s integration allows users to verbally query data using natural language and access results using the AI assistive tool. 
  • The Customization feature allows developers to change the appearance of default visualization as well as reporting tools and import new tools into the platform. 
  • APIs for integration provide sample code and application performance interfaces to developers for embedding the Power BI dashboard in other software products. 
  • Self-service data prep enables business analysts to ingest, transform, integrate and enrich big data into the Power BI web service which can be later shared across multiple Power BI models, reports and dashboards. 
  • The modeling view allows users to divide complex data models by subject area into separate diagrams, select objects and set common properties multiple times, view and modify properties in the properties window and also enables to set display folders for simpler consumption of complex data models.

What are the Various Versions of Power BI? 

There are several versions of Power BI available to choose from—depending on your budget, needs, and how you want to deploy it. These versions range from light use to comprehensive features, from free to premium, allowing users to choose the one that best meets their needs. 

While Power BI Desktop is a Windows desktop application, the Power BI service is an online SaaS (Software as a Service) service. The Power BI app is available on iOS and Android phones and tablets. On the other hand, the Power BI Report Server is an on-premise version. Following are some of the available versions of Power BI and each version serves a different purpose.  

1. Power BI Desktop 

The authoring tool of Power BI, the desktop component is mainly used by the report designers to access, transform and model the data while creating measures and building the data visualizations. Power BI Desktop can be downloaded for free and it supports Windows OS.  

2. Power BI Service 

It is the cloud-based central hub of the Power BI solution where users can access and interact with their Power BI reports. Using this, users can also create dashboards from their reports and can use the self-service functions for editing and creating new visualizations. Users can further share the concluded insights and collaborate with co-workers on reports and dashboards. There are two ways to license Power BI Service; Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium. 

• • Power BI Pro is not much different from the Power BI Desktop and both have the same visualization options, same limits on storage and file upload size as well as the same report refresh allowance. The key difference between both versions is Pro allows you to share data, reports and dashboards with others privately (given users also have a Power BI Pro license). Moreover, the Pro version allows you to create app workspaces where you can put collections of related dashboards and reports while easily creating accessible content packs.  

• • On the other hand, Power BI Premium serves as an alternative way to access Power BI. With Premium, you pay for the amount of space and processing capacity you require for business, instead of purchasing licenses for individual users with the Power BI Pro. It has 6 capacity models—each with varying amounts of memory to allow users choose the required amount for running their Power BI platform. The Premium version is mainly for enterprise-level businesses that generate large amounts of data and require extensive access to the app. 

 3. Power BI Mobile

Power BI’s mobile component allows users to interact with their published reports through smartphones or tablets via a downloadable app. The Power BI Mobile provides access to reports on the fly at anywhere and at any point in time. Users can also personalize data alerts and get real-time data updates using the mobile component of Power BI. The component is supported by Windows, iOS as well as Android devices.  

4. Power BI Report Server 

Report Server is a server product that comes with the Power BI Premium. It enables users to use Power BI on-premise. For some businesses, uploading data to the cloud is not a feasible option due to data regulation laws applied to their industry. It could also be due to a lack of infrastructure or connectivity where they are able to reliably access SaaS platforms.  

5. Power BI Embed 

Lastly, Power BI Embedded enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and developers to embed Power BI’s functionality and capabilities into their respective apps on a pay-as-you-go or ‘white label’ basis. Instead of building their own reporting features, users can rather add Power BI to their products and it will cater to all the reporting necessary reporting and data analysis.  

The above-listed are the different versions of the Power BI available. Let us now have a look at the components of Power BI.  

What are the Components that Make Power BI?  

The Power BI product is made up of a number of apps. Each has its own respective features and uses. Following are the components of Power BI:   

• • Power Query is a data connection tool that lets you transform, combine, and enhance data from several sources 

• • Power Pivot is a data modeling tool for creating data models 

• • Power View is a data visualization tool that generates interactive charts, graphs, maps, and other visuals 

• • Power Map is another visualization tool for creating immersive 3D visuals 

• • Power Q&A is a question and answer engine that lets you ask questions about your data in plain language 

Now that we have understood the various components of the Power BI, let us have a look at how to create a Power BI dashboard.  

# How to Create a Power BI dashboard?  

You can create a Power BI dashboard using the following steps:  

• • Collect and organize your data. There are various ways to import data within your organization, file directories and databases. In fact, you can also copy and paste data from an existing dataset. But in such cases, you will have to select samples and import a pre-configured dataset. Moreover, the data is imported with no editing options.   
  • You can find the dataset in your workspace in the Power BI service. You can easily start analyzing the data by selecting ‘Get Quick Insights’ on the menu and a dashboard will be generated while you’re working on the data.   
  • Select ‘Create Report’ to open the report builder. Here, you will find three elements, namely—Canvas (Remains blank until visuals are added); Visualization Pane (Used to add and edit charts); Fields Pane (Consists of a list of the fields in your dataset based on the columns).  
  • For building a report, you can select the relevant fields from your data or pick a visualization that is displayed on the blank canvas.  
  • Click on the relevant field to add a field to your report and Power BI will automatically add the field to the required area in the chart. However, you can also drag and drop fields into the axis, legend, and values area.  
  • The charts will start to take shape as you add the fields. If required, you can also change it by selecting another option in the Visualizations pane.  
  • The next step is formatting the chart. To format it, click on the ‘format’ option and you will have access to a range of options such as the size and colors of the chart, borders, tooltips, and many more.  
  • You can also add a title or detail to the report by clicking on the ‘Text box’ option in the top menu. You can also have a preview of the report by selecting the ‘Reading View’ to check how the report appears to others. In fact, you can add more visualizations if needed, but remember to save your work.  
  • Create a dashboard by selecting ‘Pin to a live page’. Next, create a dashboard by selecting ‘Pin to a live page’. You can also add the report to an existing dashboard or in fact build a new dashboard. 
  • Once you’re done with your work, there are several ways you can use the reports under the ‘File: Export reports to use PowerPoint or as a PDF.’ Then, Export reports to PowerPoint or PDF and embed them in a SharePoint site. 
  • You can personalize your display settings using the ‘View’ option at any given time as well as change the report’s size and its colors for improved readability.  

Using the following steps, you can create a Power BI dashboard. There are several examples of Power BI dashboard available on the internet that you can refer for your convenience.  

Frequently Asked Questions on Microsoft Power BI :

The post A Brief Guide to Microsoft Power BI (with Frequently Asked Questions)  appeared first on Tech Research Online.

Imagine a Sunday morning, you wake up and with nothing in your “to-do list,’ you start scrolling through Instagram. After a few minutes, your stomach growls and you realize it’s been 3 hours.  

Well! Don’t worry, we all do!

Fun fact, the human brain is usually attracted to data which is in the form of images, video, and other visuals.

Here are some facts which can help you understand why our brains value visuals over any other type of information.

• 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual  
• The human brain processes an image in just 13 milliseconds 
• 50% of the brain is active in visual processing 
• Human brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text 

So, it’s an absolute no-brainer why you can spend hundreds of hours on the internet without getting tired.  

Today, we are exposed to 5x more information than in 1986. Companies are battling for attention with the rising amount of data and shortening human attention through data visualization.  

Data visualization can make complex data simple. It can take mundane raw data and transform it into actionable business insights. Hence, data visualization is easier to understand and it can provide a compelling argument.  

But, how does this translate into the business landscape? 

• American Management Association says that the study found that the use of data visualizations could shorten business meeting by 24%.
• Tableau says managers with visual data recovery tools are 28% times more likely to find timely information than those relying on reporting and 48% of these managers can find the data. 
• Bain & Company says companies with advanced analytics are 2x more likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance and use data for making decisions, 3x more likely to execute intended decisions, and 5x more likely to make decisions faster.  
• Nucleus Research says that a BI with data visualization capabilities will offer an ROI of $13.01 back on every dollar. 

I hope these stats have made your learning journey more interesting and fun. So, let’s start by understanding a bit about Power BI Dashboards before we dive deeper into its realm. 

What is a Power BI dashboard? 

Power BI dashboard is a page that tells you a story with the help of visualizations. You can also check out some amazing Power BI Dashboard examples. 

What is a Dashboard in the Power BI dashboard? 

The dashboard is a distinguishing feature of Power BI as it monitors your data. It is responsible for providing a consolidating view by combining the on-premises and cloud-born data. 

In this blog, we have created a step-by-step guide to help you create a Power BI Dashboard for your business.  

1. Import your Collected Data 

Launch your Power BI application and give it access to your important data. By clicking on add, you will be able to import all your dataset from an MS Excel Workbook.  

Please note that the dashboard will remain empty until you give it data.

Source: Tutorial Getaway

The application will give you an option to navigate through files and you can browse to the location.  

Locate the file and add them to the dashboard. Some files might take a little more time to process depending on the size.

Source: Tutorial Getaway 

After the file is imported, you will see a workspace, there you can choose the imported dataset. Which will change the blank workspace into a visualization creation tool.  

2. Work with Your dashboard 

Once you have added data to your dashboard, it’s time to add tiles. 

A tile is basically a snapshot of your data which is pinned to the dashboard. There are two ways to go about this-  

• You can create tiles on your own directly on the dashboard. 
• You can select and add tile from the menu bar. 

A tile can be created from a dataset, the Q&A box, Excel workbook on OneDrive for Business, SQL Server Reporting Services reports, a dashboard, Quick Insights, Power BI Publisher for Excel, and more.

Source: Tutorial Getaway

Different Power BI application has a different icon. For example, Microsoft Power Bi has icons to represent different visualizations such as bar charts, stacked bars, column charts, pies, line graphs, half donuts, waterfall charts, area charts, among others.

Source: Microsoft Power BI Dashboard 

The fields section allows you to choose and switch between different data fields. For instance, imagine a dataset with a table with several columns containing employee name, age, address, ID, salary range, and hike over the years. 

Depending on what you wish to display first, you need to tick the checkbox and then choose a chart type. For example, if you wish to display the salary range first- you can tick the age checkbox.  

3. Choose the Right Chart 

Now you have created your dashboard and have already added tiles, it’s time to learn which type of chart will be most suitable for which data.  

You should remember that data visualization is an intricate process and if not properly considered, it can become misleading. 

You should know that charts are classified into four general types based on their functionality: 

• Distribution 
• Relationship  
• Comparison 
• Composition  

Source:- Microsoft Build

Below are some things to keep in mind while creating charts:  

• Pie charts:

They are best used to show composition in terms of percentages and while working with them you need to make sure all values add up to a hundred. 

• Bar and column charts:

Both are mostly used for distribution and comparison. For example, you can display the salary range vs the number of employees. Besides, you can also use them to show periodic data. 

• Line and area charts:

They are best used for comparison as they are most suitable for viewing time series. For example, a line chart will give you the best visual representation if you wish to see the salary growth of employees over the years.  

• Scatter plots:

They are the best for showing relationships between different variables. For example, you can see the number of years employees worked varied by salary. 

• Stacked charts:

They are best used when you want to show comparison and composition.  

Lastly, sometimes visuals and other not important data can slow down your Power BI dashboard. Here, are 5 ways you can prevent it from slowing.  

4. Design a great Power BI dashboard 

You have created your dashboard, added appropriate tiles, and added the right charts. Now, you need to start thinking about “how to make your dashboard functional”.  

Remember, you need your dashboard to be beautiful and not just pretty.  

This means that you want to make most of your important information stand by clearing all the clutter.  

Source:- Microsoft Build

For this step, you need to learn more about best practices for the Power BI dashboard. Here is an example of a power bi interactive dashboard: 

5. Save Your dashboard

Your final step is you need to save your already created dashboard. For that click on the “Save button” on the toolbar. 

Once you have completed this process you don’t need to worry about updating your Power BI charts. This is because they are dependent on the Excel data and will keep updating themselves as you update the Excel sheet. 

Source:- Microsoft Build

Power BI dashboard application also gives you the power to publish the dashboard and share it with your colleagues.  

Conclusion: 

In this blog post, we have discussed the step-by-step process to create a Power BI Dashboard with Examples.  

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. How do I create a dashboard in Power BI? 

• Import your Collected Data 
• Work with Your dashboard 
• Choose the Right Chart 
• Design a great Power BI dashboard 
• Save Your dashboard 

Author Bio:

The post How to Create a Dashboard in Power BI for Beginner appeared first on Tech Research Online.

Power BI is usually considered to be a quick tool, which allows data display with varied visuals and graphics. Although Power BI has the capacity to manage huge databases, one may find himself waiting for a few minutes, till the visual load.

However, this is not a very big issue, and there are a number of good practices that can be used to off-load some burden form the machine that it has to carry out. And, most importantly there are various good practices that can be implemented to lighten the load and improve the performance of the tool while accelerating the process of loading visual and graphics.

In this blog post, we have listed down 5 quick and easy ways that are efficient enough to immediately fix the speed issues of your dashboard, while improving their performance without making any significant change.

Power BI Dashboard & Reporting

Power BI is a renowned business analytical tool that is used to create a dashboard and reports from your data. The ‘drag & drop’ interface of Power BI makes the process of creating a dashboard very easy and quick.

However, once you start adding tiles and widgets to the dashboards, the things start to get a little complicated, and the overall performance speed of your dashboard may get reduced. But this is not to worry about, because there are many ways that you can adopt to improve the speed of your dashboard.

Below listed are the 5 tips that you may use to improve the performance of your BI dashboard.

• Remove Everything Unnecessary & Unused

The first and the easiest way possible is to least burdened your dashboards. Whether its charts, tables, columns, rows, visuals, or any other thing, that is placed unnecessarily on the dashboard, or you don’t use it frequently, then remove it from your dashboard.

So when you are at the pre-processing stage of your data, try to stick to only what is really needed on your dashboard, because putting too much unnecessary stuff on the dashboard can significantly impact its performance and hence your overall productivity.

• Use Integers Wherever Possible

Another great tip to improve the performance of your Power BI dashboards is to use integers as much as possible. For your Power BI dashboards, searching through the rows of strings is way more complicated than searching through the rows of numbers.

So wherever possible, try to use integers as much as you can. For instance, instead of using ‘Yes/No’, try to use 0/1. Or, use 3/2/1 instead of high/medium/low. While choosing values, pay additional attention, because not every digit is an integer, so it always better to check the data format with the query editor.

Use Tabs

Try to use as many tabs as possible in your Power BI dashboards. It will not only decongest your dashboard but also improve its overall performance. So, if you ever find your dashboard overwhelmed by the charts, slicers, and cards, then it is wise to divide them into subtopics/themes, etc., and place them under different tabs.

By synchronizing your filters over different tabs, you will be able to keep your slicers, making tab B filter tab A or vice versa. This technique will make your dashboard looks organized, sorted, and faster in terms of performance.

• Stick to Built-In/Default Widgets of Power BI

Power BI is an excellent resource for finding out the remarkable widgets that accurately present your insights. Although sometimes, you are not offered any choice, even if you have one, we would suggest you stick to the default widgets.

Undoubtedly, those third-party widgets look way better than the default ones, but they seriously impact your dashboard’s performance. So before implementing, you need to ask yourself if they are worthy enough and if you can compromise the speed and performance of your dashboard for them. Not all commercial widgets impact the dashboard performance and speed; however, you will feel a significant improvement in speed if you will switch to the default slicers or widgets over the third-party one.

• Use Top-N Rows in Tables

Bigger tables can make your dashboard crawl. Whenever you use a slicer, the capability of your tables to generate and display the data into datasets comes into play. For a similar purpose, Microsoft has added the convenient feature of “Top-N Rows” features.

So whenever you activate the function, the tables limit themselves to the defined ‘n’ number of rows, instead of opening and displaying the whole dataset. This is another minimal yet essential intervention that can help you incredibly increase your dashboard’s performance.

Learn to Measure Your Speed

In the May 2019 Power BI update, Microsoft introduced the latest feature of ‘Performance Analyzer’.

This tool is designed to help you analyze your dashboard’s speed and also highlights the bottlenecks that are impacting the overall performance. It works by recording the actions that you perform while using a dashboard against the time that it takes to load a particular widget.

Also Read: Top 11 Best Big Data Tools And Software That You Can Use In 2022

Again, apart from these 5 ways, there are various other methods that you may use to improve the speed of your Power BI dashboard. However, before implementing any serious change, we would recommend you to try these to enhance the speed of your Power BI dashboard.

Author Bio

Sam Khan is a content writer and consultant in an IT company. He covers software development, mobile apps, Power BI & SharePoint services, and helps with the clients.

The post 5 Ways to Speed Up Your Power BI Dashboard appeared first on Tech Research Online.