How to Create a Display Folder in Power BI

Wrangling a Power BI data model with dozens or hundreds of fields can feel like sorting through a junk drawer. When your measures, calculated columns, and IDs are all jumbled together in one long list, finding what you need becomes a frustrating hunt. Display Folders are your simple, powerful solution to this chaos. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to create display folders to organize your data model, making it easier for you to build reports and easier for your users to understand them.

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What Are Power BI Display Folders and Why Use Them?

A Display Folder is a virtual folder in Power BI's Data pane used to group measures and columns. It’s purely for organizational purposes and has zero impact on your data model’s calculations or relationships. Think of it like creating folders on your computer's desktop to organize files - it doesn't change the files themselves, but it makes everything immensely easier to find.

So, why take the extra five minutes to set them up? The benefits compound quickly:

• Improved Developer Experience: When you're building a report, a well-organized model means you spend less time scrolling and more time analyzing. Finding your "Total Sales" measure in a "Sales Metrics" folder is a lot faster than hunting for it in an alphabetical list of 150 fields.
• Better User Experience: For colleagues who use your dataset to build their own reports, a clean folder structure is a gift. It guides them to the right metrics, preventing them from using an ID column when they should have used a measure. This clarity makes your data models more accessible and promotes self-service analytics.
• Increased Scalability: Your first data model might be simple, but as you add more tables, calculated columns, and complex DAX measures, a flat list becomes unmanageable. Starting with a good folder structure from the beginning makes your model easier to maintain and scale over time.
• Logical Grouping: They allow you to group fields by business logic rather than by just table and name. You can create folders for "Customer KPIs," "Time Intelligence," "Financial Metrics," and "Shipping Details," which is far more intuitive for most business users.

How to Create a Display Folder in Power BI (Step-by-Step)

Creating display folders happens in Power BI Desktop's Model View. This is where you manage relationships, data types, and formatting for your model. Here’s the straightforward process:

Step 1: Switch to Model View

On the left-hand side of Power BI Desktop, you'll see three icons: Report, Data, and Model. Click on the Model icon, which looks like a diagram of three connected boxes. This is the only place you can create and manage display folders effectively for multiple fields at once.

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Step 2: Select the Fields You Want to Group

In the Data pane on the right side of the screen, find the table containing the measures or columns you want to organize.

• To select a single field, just click on it.
• To select multiple fields at once, hold down the Ctrl key while you click on each measure or column. This is the most efficient way to organize a table with many fields moving to the same folder.

For example, you might select Total Revenue, Total COGS, and Gross Profit % to put them all into a new "Financials" folder.

Step 3: Find the "Display folder" Property

With your fields selected, look below at the Properties pane. You may need to scroll down a bit. Under the "General" section, you'll find a text box labeled Display folder.

Step 4: Name Your Folder

Click inside the "Display folder" text box and type the name you want for your folder. For instance, you could type "Key Metrics." Once you're done, press Enter or click away. Power BI will instantly create the folder and move your selected fields into it.

Step 5: Check Your Work

Look back up at your table in the Data pane. You’ll now see a small folder icon with the name you just created. The fields you selected are neatly tucked inside. You've successfully decluttered part of your data model!

Creating Nested Folders (Sub-folders)

As your model grows, you might need another level of organization. For instance, instead of one giant "Metrics" folder, you may want to separate "Sales Metrics" from "Inventory Metrics." Power BI makes this simple using a backslash (\).

To create a nested folder, follow the same steps as above, but in the "Display folder" text box, use a backslash to separate the parent folder from the child folder.

Example:

1. Select your measures related to Year-Over-Year growth.
2. In the Properties pane, go to the Display folder box.
3. Type: Time Intelligence\YOY Metrics

When you press Enter, Power BI creates a parent folder called "Time Intelligence" and, inside of it, a sub-folder called "YOY Metrics" containing your selected measures. This technique is fantastic for building clean, hierarchical structures.

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Best Practices for Organizing Your Data Model

Now that you know how to create folders, let’s talk strategy. A little bit of planning goes a long way. Here are some best practices to follow:

Be Consistent with Naming

Choose a naming convention and stick with it. Whether you use "Sales Metrics" or "Sales_Metrics," consistency makes the structure predictable and easy to navigate for everyone on your team.

Group by Business Function

Organize folders around business concepts your users will understand. Instead of technical groupings, use intuitive names like "Marketing Analytics," "Customer Demographics," "Product Details," or "Finance KPIs." This aligns the data model with how your business actually thinks.

Create a "Keys & IDs" Folder

Every table has columns used for relationships (like CustomerID or OrderID) that are vital for the model but rarely used in visuals. Group these into a folder, sometimes named _Keys or z-IDs. The underscore prefix often sorts it to the top of the list, keeping these technical fields out of the way for regular report builders.

Keep a Separate Folder for Your Measures

Measures are the heart of your analytics, representing your key business calculations. Creating a primary folder called "Measures" or "_Measures" makes them easy to find and distinguishes them from raw columns. You can then create nested folders within it for different types of metrics (e.g., Measures\Sales, Measures\Profitability).

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A Practical Example: Cleaning Up a Sales Table

Imagine your FactSales table has the following fields in a jumbled list:

SalesID, OrderDateKey, CustomerID, ProductID, RegionName, TotalSales, UnitsSold, COGS, SalesYTD, Margin %

This is a mess. Finding "Margin %" is a hassle, and a user might accidentally pull "CustomerID" into a chart instead of "UnitsSold".

After creating display folders, the table could look like this:

• _Keys
• Geo
• Measures
• Time Intelligence

This organized structure is immediately more intuitive. A user looking for sales KPIs knows exactly where to go, and the technical ID columns are neatly tucked away, reducing the chance of errors.

Final Thoughts

Organizing fields with display folders in Power BI is a small effort that pays massive dividends in clarity and efficiency. By turning cluttered tables into logically structured resources, you make the development process faster for yourself and empower your team to build reports with confidence.

Mastering the user interface of powerful reporting tools like Power BI takes time, which is a big reason why we built Graphed. We wanted to eliminate the steep learning curve required to answer business-critical questions. Instead of clicking through panes, formatting visuals, and writing DAX, our platform enables you to simply ask questions in plain English - like "create a dashboard comparing our Shopify revenue and Facebook Ads spend by campaign last month" - and get a live, interactive dashboard built for you in seconds.