How to Make a Sunburst Chart in Power BI with AI

A Power BI sunburst chart is a fantastic way to display hierarchical data, showing how different segments contribute to a whole. Instead of spending time clicking through menus and dragging fields, you can now use Power BI's built-in AI to create these visuals almost instantly. This article will show you both the traditional method and the faster, AI-powered way to build a sunburst chart, turning complex data into a clear, interactive visual.

What is a Sunburst Chart?

Think of a sunburst chart, also known as a radial treemap, as a multi-level pie chart. It’s designed to visualize a data hierarchy and the proportional breakdown at each level.

• The circle at the center represents the root node or the top-level category (e.g., "Total Revenue").

• Each concentric ring moving outward represents the next level of the hierarchy.

• The size of each slice in a ring shows its proportion relative to its parent slice in the inner ring.

When to Use a Sunburst Chart

Sunburst charts excel when you need to see the big picture and the details at the same time. They are most effective for showing how one category is broken down into its constituent parts, and then how those parts are broken down further. Here are a few practical examples:

• Marketing Analytics: Visualize website traffic starting with the highest level channel (e.g., Organic Search, Paid Social), then drilling down into specific campaigns, ad groups, and finally individual ads. You can immediately see which campaign within "Paid Social" is driving the most traffic.

• Sales Performance: See total sales broken down by region, then by country within each region, and finally by individual sales representative. This helps quickly identify top-performing regions and sales reps.

• E-commerce Product Analysis: Analyze product sales by breaking down revenue from top-level categories (e.g., "Apparel") into sub-categories ("Men's Shirts") and then into individual products.

The main advantage is its ability to pack a lot of information into a compact space. Rather than having three separate pie charts, a sunburst chart combines them into one interactive and intuitive graphic.

Preparing Your Data for a Sunburst Chart

The key to a successful sunburst chart is properly structured hierarchical data. Your dataset needs to have a clear parent-child relationship between its columns. Without this structure, the chart won’t know how to build its rings.

Imagine you're analyzing marketing campaign data. Your spreadsheet or data table should look something like this:

Here, the hierarchy is clear: Channel → Campaign Type → Campaign Name. The Sessions column is the numerical value that will determine the size of each slice. Taking a few moments to ensure your data is clean and organized this way will save you a lot of trouble later.

Method 1: Manually Adding and Configuring a Sunburst Chart

Before jumping into the AI features, it’s helpful to understand the standard way of creating a sunburst chart. Surprisingly, it isn't a default visualization in Power BI's main panel. You have to add it from the AppSource marketplace first, but don't worry - it’s free and only takes a moment.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Get the Sunburst Visual from AppSource

1. On the Visualizations pane, click the three-dot menu (...) at the bottom.

2. Select Get more visuals.

3. In the AppSource marketplace window that pops up, search for "Sunburst".

4. Find the "Sunburst by MAQ Software" visual (it’s the most popular one) and click Add.

5. Once added, you'll see its icon appear in your Visualizations pane.

Step 2: Load Your Data

If you haven't already, load your prepared dataset into Power BI. Go to the Home ribbon, click Get Data, and select your source (e.g., Excel workbook, CSV). Your data will appear in the Fields pane on the right.

Step 3: Build the Chart

1. Click the Sunburst chart icon in the Visualizations pane to add it to your report canvas.

2. With the empty visual selected, look at the Fields wells below the chart icons. You will see two primary wells: Groups and Values.

3. Drag your hierarchical fields into the Groups well in the correct order, from top-level to bottom-level. Using our example data, you would drag and drop:

   • Channel

   • Campaign Type

   • Campaign Name

4. Next, drag your numerical field into the Values well. For this example, you would drag Sessions.

Instantly, the sunburst chart will render on your canvas. The central ring will show the breakdown by Channel, the next ring by Campaign Type, and the outermost ring will show the individual Campaign Names.

Step 4: Format Your Chart for Clarity

The default chart is functional, but you should format it to make it easier to read. Select the visual, then click the Brush Icon (the Format your visual icon) in the Visualizations pane:

• Data colors: Adjust the colors to match your brand or to highlight specific categories.

• Data labels: Customize what appears in the labels — categories, values, or percentage of the total. Keeping them concise is essential for readability.

• Title: Give your chart a clear, descriptive title like "Website Traffic by Channel & Campaign".

Method 2: Creating a Chart in Seconds with AI Q&A Visual

This is where the magic happens. Instead of manually dragging fields and configuring options, you can just tell Power BI what you want in plain English.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Add a Q&A to Your Report

Select your Report page, then go to the Visualizations pane and click the Q&A icon (which looks like a speech bubble with a question mark inside). Instead of adding the Sunburst chart manually, you'll use natural language.

Step 2: Ask a Question

A small text box appears prompting you to "Ask a question about your data". Type what you want. For our example, you might type:

Show Sessions by Channel, Campaign Type, and Campaign Name as a sunburst chart.

As you type, Q&A suggests terms based on the columns in your dataset to help clarify what you mean by "Channel". Note: You must use specific words like "sunburst chart" to tell Power BI what kind of visual you want.

Step 3: Fine-tune the Visual to Your Report

Once you're happy with the generated visual, you can convert it into a standard chart by clicking the pin icon at the top right corner of the Q&A box. The chart is now pinned and added to your canvas and behaves like any other visual in Power BI. It's fully editable and can be formatted using all the same options you configured in the manual method.

Taking it a Step Further with Smart Narratives

After you've added a chart, either manually or with the Q&A, you can enhance the report by using Smart Narrative to generate an AI summary of what's in your chart. Right-click any chart and select "Summarize". Power BI instantly generates an English summary that highlights key findings in your data. For instance, it may say, "Social Media and Paid Search account for a large portion of total sessions, with Social Media, Brand being the highest performing campaign."

This feature takes the guesswork out of interpreting data for your audience.

Tips for Making Your Sunburst Chart Effective

A great chart not only looks good but also communicates effectively. Here are some quick tips to make sure your sunburst chart is clear and purposeful:

• Keep hierarchy levels to a minimum. Anything more than four can make the chart look cluttered and hard to interpret.

• Color thoughtfully. Use base colors and variations to highlight specific categories or segments.

• Provide clear titles and labels. Your audience should instantly know exactly what is being shown without needing to ask.

• If the chart becomes too busy, consider alternative visualizations. For large datasets, a regular chart or Treemap might better serve your message clearly.

Final Thoughts

A Power BI Sunburst chart allows you to visualize hierarchical data and how segments contribute to a whole. The traditional method works just fine, but the AI Q&A tool is much faster and efficient. Describing what you want in plain English helps you articulate complex points about your data instantly. We built Graphed based on this idea: that anything can be conversational. I encourage you to try it for your data management needs as well. You connect all your data sources like Google Analytics and Salesforce into one dashboard, using natural language to understand your data. This helps your team work efficiently and make data-driven decisions, all without needing to be experts in programming or technical analytics.