How to Create a Report in Power BI Desktop

Creating your first report in Power BI Desktop might seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually a straightforward process of connecting your data and building visuals. Getting started is easier than you think, and this guide will show you exactly how. We'll walk through every step, from connecting to a simple data file to building an interactive report you can share.

What Exactly is a Power BI Report?

In the world of Power BI, a report is an interactive collection of visualizations that offers a multi-faceted view of your dataset. It’s like a digital canvas where you can have multiple pages, each one filled with charts, graphs, and tables that all work together. When you click on one element in a report, it can filter and highlight the data in all the other visuals on the page, allowing for dynamic data exploration.

This is different from a Power BI dashboard, which is typically a single-page summary or a collection of key highlights from one or more reports. Reports are where you do the deep analysis and discovery, dashboards are where you monitor key metrics at a glance. We’re going to focus on building the report itself inside Power BI Desktop.

Getting Started: What You Need

Before you build anything, you’ll need two things:

• Power BI Desktop: This is a free application from Microsoft that you need to install on your Windows computer. If you don’t have it yet, you can download it directly from the Microsoft Store.
• Sample Data: You need some data to visualize. For this tutorial, we’ll use a simple sales dataset. You can create an Excel file (e.g., Sample Sales Data.xlsx) and copy the data below into a sheet named SalesData.

Here's the sample data to use:

Once you have Power BI Desktop installed and a data file saved, you're ready to build.

How to Create Your First Power BI Report (Step-by-Step)

Let's go through the entire process of how to create a report in Power BI Desktop, from launching the application to having a finished report.

Step 1: Connect to Your Data Source

First, we need to bring our data into Power BI. Power BI can connect to hundreds of different data sources, from Excel files and databases to web services like Salesforce and Google Analytics.

1. Open Power BI Desktop. You may see a welcome screen, which you can close.
2. On the Home tab of the ribbon at the top, click on the Get Data icon.
3. A new window will appear showcasing a long list of potential data sources. Since our data is in an Excel file, select Excel workbook and click Connect.
4. Navigate to where you saved your Sample Sales Data.xlsx file, select it, and click Open.

A new window called the Navigator will appear. This shows you all the sheets and tables available within your Excel file. Select the checkbox next to SalesData to preview it. Once you confirm it’s the right data, you’ll see two options at the bottom: Load and Transform Data.

Step 2: Prepare Your Data in Power Query Editor

While it’s tempting to hit "Load" immediately, it’s a best practice to always start with "Transform Data." This will open the Power Query Editor, which is a powerful tool for cleaning, shaping, and preparing your data before it gets into your report.

Here’s what to check in Power Query:

• Check Column Headers: Make sure your column headers (Date, Product, etc.) are correctly identified. If they aren't, you can go to the Transform tab and click "Use First Row as Headers." Ours should already be correct.
• Review Data Types: Power BI is usually good at guessing data types, but you should always verify. Click on the icon next to each column name to check. Make sure Date is set to the Date type, Product and Region are Text types, and Units Sold and Revenue are set to a Number type (like Whole Number or Decimal Number).
• Remove or Rename Columns: If you had extra columns you didn't need, you could right-click the column header and select "Remove." In our case, the data is clean so we don’t need to do anything.

Once you’re satisfied that your data is clean and properly formatted, click the Close & Apply button in the top-left corner. Power BI will apply your changes and load the data model.

Step 3: Get Familiar with the Power BI Canvas

You’ll now be in the main Report view, which is your canvas for creating visuals. Let's do a quick tour of the interface:

• The Canvas: This large, blank area in the center is where you’ll drag, drop, and arrange your charts and graphs.
• Ribbon: At the top, you'll find familiar tabs like Home, Insert, and View for accessing different tools and features.
• Panes (on the right):

Step 4: Add Your First Visualizations

Now for the fun part: turning our raw data into meaningful charts. We’ll build three simple visuals to track our sales performance.

Visual 1: Total Revenue as a Card

Let's start with a high-level KPI. A card is perfect for displaying a single, important number.

1. In the Visualizations pane, click on the Card visual icon (it looks like a rectangle with "123" on it). A blank card will appear on your canvas.
2. With the new card visual selected, go to the Data pane.
3. Click and drag the Revenue field over to the Fields well in the Visualizations pane.
4. Voila! The card now displays the sum of all revenue. You can drag the corners to resize it and move it around your report canvas.

Pro tip: You can add another card for the Units Sold field for an overview of your top-level data.

Visual 2: Revenue by Product as a Bar Chart

Next, let's see which products are driving the most revenue.

1. Click on an empty area of your canvas to deselect the card visual.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click on the Stacked Bar Chart icon. A blank chart template appears.
3. Drag the visual to the middle of your page and resize it to about 3/4 the page width.
4. From the Data pane, drag Product into the Y-axis and Revenue into the X-axis well.

Power BI automatically creates a bar chart showing the revenue generated by each product.

Visual 3: Units Sold by Region as a Donut Chart

Finally, let’s see an overview of our sales distribution across regions.

1. Click on an empty spot on the canvas again.
2. In the Visualizations pane, select the Donut Chart icon. A donut chart is my preferred version of a pie chart, as it is easier to read, especially when more slices are involved.
3. From the Data pane, drag Region to the Legend well.
4. Drag the Units Sold into the Values well.

Now you have a chart that breaks down the percentage of units sold in each region.

Step 5: Format and Customize Your Visuals

A good report is not only accurate but also easy to read. Power BI gives you complete control over the look and feel of your visuals.

Let’s add a title to the Donut Chart from the previous step:

1. Click to select your Donut Chart to highlight it.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click the Format icon (it looks like a paintbrush).
3. Expand the Title section. You can also change the font, color, and add things like data labels, visual borders, and shadows here.
4. Update the chart’s title with something more descriptive. In the Text field, add "Distribution of Units Sold by Region" where it currently says "Sum of Units Sold by Region".

Take some time to click through a few of your visuals in the Format options panel, as exploring these options is the best way to develop an understanding of what Power BI is capable of from a design perspective.

Step 6: Make Your Report Interactive with Slicers

One of the most powerful features of Power BI is its interactivity. Slicers are user-friendly filters that allow anyone viewing the report to easily slice and dice the data.

Let’s add a slicer that filters the data by region, to see your entire report updated for that specific region:

1. Make sure no visuals are selected by clicking on a blank area on the report canvas.
2. From the Visualizations pane, click the Slicer icon.
3. A new, blank Slicer template appears. Drag it somewhere convenient, maybe on the side.
4. From the Data pane, grab Region and drag it right into the slicer visual Field.

That’s it! You now have a Region slicer. By default, it will show a list of regions, each with a checkbox. Test it yourself by clicking on a region such as North. Notice how all other visuals on your page dynamically update with the data for that region only.

Your Masterpiece: Save and Share

Now that you’ve built this beautiful report, it’s time to save your work. Click on File > Save As and give it a name like "Monthly Sales Review". Files are saved with a .pbix extension. You’re able to save locally on your machine so you can come back to it anytime to edit.

Publish Your Report to Power BI Service

When you’re ready to share your report with others, you can publish it to Power BI Service (powerbi.com). This is Microsoft’s cloud-based analytics service where you can share your reports and collaborate on data.

1. On the menu bar, click on Publish.
2. You may be asked to sign in to your Power BI account. If you don’t have one yet, you’ll need to create it first.

Once it is there, it can appear in SharePoint or be shared widely across your organization with controlled permissions.

Final Thoughts

Creating reports in Power BI Desktop starts with connecting to your data and ends with visual storytelling and interactive analysis. Power BI makes it easy to layer in visuals and insights that aid in interpreting data quickly and effectively. This article has hopefully guided you in setting up your first report. Explore, analyze, visualize, and when you're ready to take a leap into more advanced reporting, consider using tools like Graphed to manage and organize your reports efficiently.