How to Add Graph in Tooltip in Power BI

Adding a chart directly into a Power BI tooltip is one of the most effective ways to make your reports more interactive and insightful. Instead of a simple text box, you can show a detailed visual breakdown when a user hovers over a data point, providing deeper context without cluttering your dashboard. This article will guide you step-by-step through the process of creating and applying these powerful report page tooltips.

Why Use a Graph in a Power BI Tooltip?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Default tooltips are fine - they show you the exact values of the data point you're hovering over. But embedding a full graph (known as a "report page tooltip") transforms a static report into an interactive analytical tool. Here are a few key benefits:

• Provides Deeper Context on Demand: Imagine a bar chart showing total sales by region. With a standard tooltip, hovering over the "West" region just shows you the total sales number. With a graph in the tooltip, you could instantly see a pie chart breaking down those sales by product category just for the West region. The user gets richer information right where they need it.
• Reduces Dashboard Clutter: You can keep your main dashboard clean and focused on high-level KPIs. All the granular, supporting detail can be tucked away neatly inside a tooltip, only appearing when a user actively seeks it. This creates a cleaner, more intuitive user experience.
• Enhances Data Storytelling: Report page tooltips allow you to tell a more complete story. You're not just showing what the number is, you're showing why it is that way. Hovering over a spike in website traffic for a specific day could reveal a line chart showing the sources (e.g., Organic Search, Social Media) that drove that spike.

In short, it's about packing more analytical power into a smaller space, making your reports more efficient and engaging for your audience.

Step 1: Create and Configure a New "Tooltip" Page

The first step isn't to create the graph itself, but to set up a special report page that Power BI will use as your tooltip canvas. Think of it as building a mini-dashboard specifically for the hover-over action.

Create the New Page

In your Power BI report, click the "+" icon at the bottom of the screen to add a new page. It’s a good practice to give this page a descriptive name. For example, if you plan to show a breakdown of product categories, name the page something like "Category Tooltip". This makes it easier to find later when you have multiple tooltip pages.

1. Navigate to the bottom Tabs in your Power BI Desktop file.
2. Click the plus sign (+) to add a new page.
3. Right-click the new page tab and select Rename. Give it a clear name like "Sales by City Tooltip".

Adjust Page Settings

This is the most crucial part of the setup. You need to tell Power BI that this page isn't a standard, full-sized report page, but a small tooltip. With nothing selected on your new page (click the blank canvas), go to the Format page pane on the right-hand side.

1. Allow Use as Tooltip

Under the Page information section, you'll see a toggle switch labeled Allow use as tooltip. Switch this to On. This single setting is what enables this page to be selected as a tooltip for other visuals.

2. Set Page Size to "Tooltip"

Next, collapse the Page information section and expand the Canvas settings section. Here, you'll see a 'Type' dropdown that is likely set to '16:9' (a standard widescreen report size) by default.

• Click the dropdown and change the 'Type' to Tooltip. You'll immediately see the canvas shrink to a small rectangle. This is the default size for a tooltip, and for most uses, it's perfectly fine. If you need more or less space, you can change the 'Type' to 'Custom' and manually adjust the height and width in pixels.

Pro Tip: Resist the temptation to make your tooltip canvas too large. It should be small enough to provide context without completely covering the original visual the user is hovering over.

After completing these two steps, your canvas is ready. It's time to add the actual graph.

Step 2: Design and Build Your Tooltip Graph

Now you can design the visual that will appear inside your tooltip. You can add any Power BI visual - bar charts, pie charts, line charts, cards, etc. - to your new tooltip canvas.

Add a Visual to the Canvas

From the Visualizations pane, select the chart you want to use. A pie chart or a funnel chart can be very effective for showing breakdowns of a total, while a small bar or column chart works well for comparisons.

For our example, let's say we want to hover over a bar chart with 'Total Sales by Region' and see a breakdown of sales by a specific sales manager in that region.

1. Select a Clustered column chart from the Visualizations pane and add it to your tooltip canvas.
2. Drag it to fill the small canvas appropriately.
3. From the Data pane, drag your fields onto the visual. For this example, we would:

At this point, the chart on your tooltip page will show the total sales for all sales managers across all regions, which is not what we want. But don't worry - this is expected. The magic happens when Power BI automatically filters this visual based on the data point you hover over on your main page.

Styling Your Tooltip Visual

Since space is limited, formatting is important. Here are some quick tips:

• Keep it Simple: One simple chart is often more effective than multiple cards or complex visuals.
• Use Data Labels: On a small chart, data labels can sometimes be more readable than axis labels. Consider turning on data labels and turning off the Y-axis to save space.
• Minimalist Titles: Use a short, clear title or remove it entirely if the chart is self-explanatory. The context is already provided by the main visual.
• Readable Colors: Ensure your color palette has sufficient contrast and aligns with the color scheme of your main report.

Step 3: Connect the Tooltip to Your Main Visual

You’ve built the tooltip page and designed the graph. The final step is to tell your main visual to use it.

1. Navigate to your main report page, the one with the visual you want the tooltip to apply to (e.g., your 'Total Sales by Region' chart).
2. Select that visual by clicking on it.
3. With the visual selected, go to the Format visual pane on the right-hand side.
4. Expand the General tab, and then find and expand the Tooltips section.
5. By default, the Type will be set to 'Default'. Click the dropdown and change it to Report page.
6. A new dropdown menu called Page will appear below. Click it and select the name of the tooltip page you created earlier (e.g., "Sales by City Tooltip").

And that’s it! The connection is made.

Step 4: Test Your New Tooltip

Now, simply hover your mouse over one of the bars in your main 'Total Sales by Region' chart. Instead of the default black box with text, your custom report page tooltip should appear, showing the filtered column chart of sales managers' performance just for that specific region.

Hover over a different region, and you’ll see the tooltip update instantly, filtering to show the data for that new region. This powerful, context-aware filtering is what makes report page tooltips so valuable for data exploration.

Common Troubleshooting and Tips

Sometimes things don't work perfectly on the first try. Here are some common issues and how to solve them:

• My tooltip isn't filtering: This is the most common problem. It almost always happens because the data model relationship is missing or indirect. The field powering your main visual's axis (e.g., 'Region') must have a direct relationship to the data being displayed in your tooltip visual. Double-check your data model in the 'Model view' tab.
• The tooltip shows the same total value for everything: This is another symptom of a filtering or relationship problem. The data you hover over on the main visual is not successfully passing its filter context to the tooltip page. Again, the solution lies in your data model.
• My tooltip is too big/small: Easy fix! Just go back to your tooltip page, click on the blank canvas, and in the 'Canvas settings' of the Format pane, change the type to 'Custom' and adjust the height and width until it's just right.
• Use "Keep All Filters": By default, the tooltip is only filtered by the data point you hover over. If your main visual has other filters applied to it (from slicers or other charts), you might want the tooltip to respect those too. In the 'Fields' well for your tooltip visual, you will see a "Keep all filters" toggle. Turning this on will ensure the tooltip inherits all active filters from the main page, not just the single data point context.

Final Thoughts

Creating graphs in Power BI tooltips transforms your reporting from a static display of data into an interactive analytics experience. By following these steps, you can add layers of rich, contextual detail to your dashboards, empowering users to drill down into the data and discover insights for themselves, all without ever leaving the main view.

Ultimately, the goal of any reporting tool is to make data easier to understand. Building better tooltips is a great first step, but the landscape of data analysis is changing. Here at Graphed, we've built a platform that streamlines this whole process. Instead of manually clicking through menus to create visualizations and configure tooltips, you can just describe what you need in plain English. We designed Graphed to connect to your data sources and build real-time, interactive dashboards instantly, allowing you to focus on the insights, not on the setup.