How to Add Expand and Collapse in Power BI

Building a Power BI report that feels both comprehensive and clean can be a balancing act. You want to offer deep, detailed data, but you don't want to overwhelm your audience with a wall of numbers. The expand and collapse feature solves this perfectly, allowing users to explore data at their own pace. This guide will walk you through how to implement this powerful feature in your matrices, visuals, and reports.

Why Use Expand and Collapse in Your Power BI Reports?

The primary benefit of adding expand and collapse functionality is a vastly improved user experience. Instead of creating separate reports for high-level summaries and detailed breakdowns, you can combine them into one interactive view. This keeps your dashboard tidy and focused, empowering your viewers instead of overwhelming them.

Imagine a sales manager looking at quarterly performance. Their initial view could be a simple summary showing total revenue by sales region. With a single click, they can expand the 'North America' region to see performance by country, and then click again on 'USA' to see the individual sales reps responsible for those numbers. This process of drilling down into the data is intuitive and allows stakeholders to find answers to their own questions without needing you to create dozens of different report variations. It transforms a static report into an exploratory tool.

• Reduces Clutter: It shows high-level summaries first, hiding granular details until they are needed.
• Improves Engagement: Users are more likely to interact with and explore a report that feels responsive and intuitive.
• Saves Space: You can present multiple levels of data without crowding your report canvas, leaving more room for other important visuals.

Method 1: Using the Built-in Hierarchy in Matrix Visuals

The most common and straightforward way to add expand and collapse functionality is by using the built-in features of the Matrix visual. This works by creating a 'hierarchy' in your data - essentially a parent-child relationship between different data fields.

Step 1: Create Your Hierarchy

A hierarchy is just a logical grouping of fields from high-level to detailed. For instance, in geography, you might use Region > Country > State. For products, it could be Category > Subcategory > Product Name.

To get started, add a Matrix visual to your Power BI report canvas. In the Visualizations pane, look for the 'Rows' well. Drag and drop your fields into this well in the desired hierarchical order. The field at the top is the highest level, and each field below it becomes a level you can expand into.

For our sales example, the hierarchy in the 'Rows' well would look like this:

• Region
• Country
• Sales Rep

Step 2: Enable the Expand/Collapse Icons

Once you've set up your hierarchy, Power BI needs to know you want to display the plus/minus icons that users will click on.

1. Select your Matrix visual.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click the paintbrush icon to open the Format visual section.
3. Expand the Row headers option.
4. Scroll down until you see the Icons option (it might be under a subsection called '+/- icons').
5. Turn the toggle On.

Instantly, you'll see plus (+) icons appear next to your top-level rows (e.g., 'North America'). Clicking a plus icon will expand that specific row to show the next level in the hierarchy (the countries), and the icon will change to a minus (-), which you can click to collapse it again.

Step 3: Mastering the Drill-Down Options

In addition to the +/- icons for individual rows, Power BI provides several icons in the visual's header for interacting with the entire hierarchy at once. You may need to hover over the visual to see them.

• Expand all down one level: The icon with two arrows pointing down will expand every item in the current view to the next level simultaneously. For example, it would show all countries for all regions at once.
• Go to the next level in the hierarchy: The icon with a single forked arrow pointing down moves the entire table to the next level. Instead of showing regions that expand to countries, it will remove the regions and make the countries the top-level view.
• Drill Mode: Toggling the single down arrow icon ('Click to turn on Drill Down') allows users to click a specific bar or row (like a single region) to drill down filtration just for that selection rather than seeing all of them.

Method 2: Creating Custom Expand/Collapse with Bookmarks

While the matrix hierarchy is great, sometimes you want to show or hide entire visuals, not just rows in a table. This is perfect for creating a clean dashboard that hides detailed charts or tables until a user clicks an 'Expand' button. For this, we'll use Bookmarks and the Selection pane.

Step 1: Set Up Your Visuals and the Selection Pane

First, place all the visuals you want on your canvas. Have your "collapsed" view visuals (e.g., summary cards) and your "expanded" view visuals (e.g., a detailed table or line chart). Position the detailed visual where you want it to appear when expanded.

Next, go to the View tab in the Power BI ribbon and check the box for Selection. This opens the Selection pane, which lists every object on your page. It's a great practice to double-click each item and give them descriptive names (e.g., "Total Revenue Card," "Detailed Sales Table") to keep things organized.

Step 2: Create a "Collapsed View" Bookmark

The goal is to create a state where your detailed visual is hidden.

1. In the Selection pane, click the eye icon next to your detailed visual (e.g., "Detailed Sales Table") to hide it.
2. Go to the View tab and click the Bookmarks button to open the Bookmarks pane.
3. Click Add. A new bookmark will appear. Rename it something intuitive, like "Collapsed View".
4. Click the three dots next to your new bookmark and make one crucial change: uncheck the box for Data. This tells the bookmark to only control the visibility and formatting of objects, not the filters or data currently displayed. This is critical for making sure filters still work across bookmarks.

Step 3: Create an "Expanded View" Bookmark

Now, do the opposite.

1. In the Selection pane, click the eye icon to make your detailed visual visible again.
2. In the Bookmarks pane, click Add and rename this new bookmark to "Expanded View".
3. Just like before, click the three dots and uncheck the Data box.

You can test your bookmarks by clicking on each of them. You should see your detailed table appear and disappear as you switch between the Expanded and Collapsed View bookmarks.

Step 4: Connect Bookmarks to Buttons

Finally, we need something for the user to click.

1. Go to the Insert tab, click on Buttons, and select a Blank button. Add two of them to your canvas.
2. On the first button, go to its Format page, expand Button text, and label it "Show Details".
3. With that button still selected, enable the Action toggle. Set the Type to "Bookmark" and the Bookmark to "Expanded View".
4. Do the same for the second button, but label it "Hide Details" and connect its action to the "Collapsed View" bookmark.

To create a truly professional feel, you can stack the buttons directly on top of each other. Then, update your bookmarks so that the "Show Details" button is only visible in the "Collapsed View," and the "Hide Details" button is only visible in the "Expanded View." This creates a seamless toggle effect with a single button.

Drilling Down in Other Chart Types

Expand/collapse is not just for matrices. Most charts in Power BI support this functionality, where it's more commonly called "drill-down." The setup is identical to Method 1: you simply create a hierarchy by dragging multiple fields into the appropriate axis well (e.g., 'X-axis' for a column chart).

Once a hierarchy exists in a chart, the same drill-down icons will appear in the visual's header. This allows users to move from seeing sales by Category to Subcategory in a bar chart with a simple click, giving charts the same exploratory power as your tables and matrices.

Final Thoughts

Mastering expand and collapse functionality moves your reports from static displays to interactive dashboards. Whether you use the simple matrix hierarchy or create custom toggles with bookmarks, these techniques empower your audience to explore data on their terms, making your insights far more accessible and impactful.

Manually building these interactive drill-downs and reports in tools like Power BI is a valuable skill, but often the real bottleneck is simplifying how fast you can explore and get answers in the first place. At Graphed we’ve completely streamlined this experience. Instead of manually configuring hierarchies and setting up bookmarks, you can connect your data sources and simply ask questions in plain English - like "Show me total sales by region and country" - and watch as an interactive dashboard is built for you in real time. We help you create powerful, explorable reports without the steep learning curve, getting you from raw data to actionable insights in seconds.