How to Link a Button to Another Page in Power BI

Creating a beautiful Power BI report is one thing, but making it easy for others to use is what turns a good report into a great one. A simple way to drastically improve your user's experience is by adding buttons that link to other pages, creating an intuitive, app-like feel for your dashboard. This article will walk you through exactly how to link a button to another page in Power BI, from the basics to some pro tips that will make your reports stand out.

Why Use Buttons for Page Navigation in Power BI?

Before we get into the "how," let's quickly touch on the "why." While your users could just click through the page tabs at the bottom of the report, it's not the most elegant or obvious solution, especially for less technical stakeholders. Using buttons for page navigation provides a much cleaner and more guided experience.

• Better User Experience (UX): Buttons are a universally understood design element. A button that says "View Sales Details" is far more intuitive than expecting someone to find and click the correct page tab named "SalesQ3_v2_Final."
• Guided Analytics: You can design a specific path for your users to follow. Start them on a high-level summary page, then provide buttons that allow them to drill down into more detailed reports, guiding their analysis in a logical sequence.
• Creates an "App-like" Feel: When you hide the default page tabs and rely solely on a well-designed navigation menu or buttons, your Power BI report starts to feel less like a spreadsheet and more like a professional, custom-built application.
• Streamlines the Interface: It allows you to create clean landing pages or a master navigation page, decluttering the view and focusing the user’s attention on the insights you want to present.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Link a Button to Another Page

Ready to add your first navigation button? Let's say you have a "Summary" page and want to add a button that takes the user to a "Sales Details" page. Here’s how you do it step by step in Power BI Desktop.

Step 1: Insert a Button onto Your Report Canvas

First, you need an object to click. Power BI has a few built-in options.

1. Navigate to the page where you want to add the button (in our example, a "Summary" page).
2. Click on the Insert tab in the ribbon at the top of the screen.
3. Click the Buttons dropdown. You’ll see a list of pre-designed buttons like Left arrow, Right arrow, Reset, etc., but for most custom navigation, you’ll start with Blank.
4. Select Blank. A simple, rectangular button will appear on your report canvas. You can click and drag it to position it wherever you like.

Pro Tip: You aren't limited to the "Blank" button! You can use an arrow to signify moving forward to a detail page or back to a home page, which can be even more intuitive for users.

Step 2: Format Your Button for Clarity and Style

An unstylized gray box isn’t very appealing. The next step is to make your button look like, well, a button. With your new button selected, the Format pane will appear on the right side of your screen. This is where the magic happens.

Here are the key formatting options to focus on:

Button Style

• Text: This is the most important part. Toggle the Text option on and type in what you want the button to say. Be clear and direct, like "View Sales Details" or "Go to Marketing KPIs." You can also change the font, color, size, and alignment here.
• Icon: You can add a simple icon to accompany your text for better visual communication. Pick one from the built-in library or add your own.
• Shape: Want a rounded rectangle or an oval? You can change the button's shape here.
• Fill: Change the background color of the button. It's a good practice to match your company's branding colors or use a color that stands out from your report background.
• Outline: Adjust the color and thickness of the border around the button.

Adding Interactivity with Hover and Press States

To make your button feel responsive, you can change its appearance when a user hovers over it or clicks it. This subtle feedback is a hallmark of good design.

• Still in the Button Style section, find the State dropdown (it's likely on "Default").
• Select On Hover. Now, any changes you make to the Fill, Text, or Outline color will only apply when a user’s mouse is over the button. A common technique is to slightly lighten or darken the button's Fill color on hover.
• Select On Press to do the same for when the button is actively being clicked.

Step 3: Turn On and Configure the "Action"

This is the core step that gives your button its function. A button is just a pretty shape until you tell Power BI what you want it to do when clicked.

1. With your button selected, go to the Format pane.
2. Find the Action section and toggle it On. This expands a new set of options.
3. Drop down the Type menu. You'll see several options like Back, Bookmark, and Web URL. For our goal, select Page navigation.
4. A new option called Destination will appear. Click this dropdown menu. It will show a list of all the other pages in your Power BI report.
5. Select the page you want to link to. In our example, we would choose the "Sales Details" page.

Step 4: Add a Helpful Tooltip

A tooltip is the small text box that appears when you hover your mouse over an object. It's an excellent way to give users extra information without cluttering your report.

1. Under the Action settings, you'll find a field for Tooltip.
2. Type in a descriptive, helpful message. For example, "Click to see a detailed breakdown of sales performance by region and product."

This little detail can make a massive difference in usability, especially if the button's purpose isn't immediately obvious from its text alone.

Testing Your New Navigation Button

Once you've set everything up, you'll want to test it. This is a common point of confusion for new Power BI developers.

• In Power BI Desktop: To activate a button (or any link), you must hold down the CTRL key and then click the button. A simple click will just select the button object for editing.
• In Power BI Service (online): Once you publish your report, the navigation works as expected. Users just need a single, standard click to navigate to the new page. No CTRL key is needed.

Always test your buttons in both environments to ensure the functionality and user experience are what you intended before sharing the report with your team or stakeholders.

Advanced Techniques & Best Practices

Once you've mastered the basic page linking, you can use these tips to take your report navigation to the next level.

Go Custom with Image Buttons

You're not limited to Power BI's built-in shapes. You can use any image as a button. Maybe your company has a set of custom-designed icons, or you just want to use your logo as a "Home" button.

1. On the Insert tab, click Image and select the image file from your computer.
2. Resize and position the image just like you did with the button.
3. With the image selected, go to the Format pane, turn On the Action toggle, and set the Type to Page navigation with your desired destination. Now your image is a fully functional button!

Create a Consistent Navigation Pane

For reports with many pages, consider creating a dedicated navigation pane that appears on every page. This gives your report a consistent, web-like navigation structure.

• Add a Shape (like a rectangle) on the left side or top of your report to serve as a background for your menu.
• Place all your navigation buttons (as regular buttons or cool icons) on top of this shape.
• Group all the objects together (the shape and the buttons) by holding CTRL, clicking each one, right-clicking, and selecting Group -> Group.
• Now, you can simply copy and paste this entire group onto every page of your report, ensuring the navigation menu is in the exact same spot everywhere. This creates a really fluid and professional experience.

Consider Bookmarks for More Complex States

What if you want the user to navigate to a new page, but you also want a specific filter or slicer to be applied when they get there? That's when "Page navigation" isn't enough, and you should use Bookmarks.

A bookmark in Power BI can save the state of an entire report page - including filters, slicers, and even the visibility of visuals. Instead of setting the button’s action Type to "Page navigation," you’d set it to "Bookmark" and choose your pre-configured bookmark. This is a more advanced technique but incredibly powerful for creating highly specific user journeys.

Final Thoughts

Adding buttons to link between pages is a small effort that pays huge dividends in user experience. It transforms a report from a series of disconnected pages into a cohesive, interactive dashboard that guides your audience to the most important insights. By taking control of the user's journey, you ensure they find the data useful and easy to understand.

Making data intuitive and easy to interact with is core to what we do. While manually building navigation in Power BI is a great skill, we designed Graphed to simplify the entire reporting process from the ground up. Instead of manually inserting every button and chart, you can just ask questions in plain English - like "create a dashboard comparing our ad spend vs sales from Shopify this quarter" - and an interactive, BI-grade dashboard is built for you in seconds, automatically drawing on live data from all your connected marketing and sales platforms.