How to Send a Shape to the Back in Power BI
Trying to send a shape to the back in Power BI to create a clean background for your KPIs, only to find it stubbornly sits on top of your charts? You’re not alone. This is one of the most common hang-ups for users trying to design polished reports. This article will show you exactly how to control your object layers perfectly using Power BI’s most powerful (and honestly, underrated) design tool: the Selection Pane.
Why "Send to Back" Can Be Deceiving in Power BI
You’ve added a nice, semi-transparent rectangle to group a few KPIs together. You select the shape, go to the “Format” ribbon, and hopefully click “Send backward” or “Send to back.” Yet, nothing happens. Your brand new shape is still obscuring your actual data visuals. Infuriating, right?
The problem isn’t a bug, it's how Power BI handles different types of objects on the report canvas. Think of your report page as having two main “families” of elements sitting on it:
Visuals: This includes your charts, graphs, tables, matrices, slicers, and KPI cards - anything that directly visualizes your data.
Elements: This includes shapes, text boxes, buttons, and images - items you use for design, navigation, and annotation.
The “Bring forward” and “Send backward” buttons on the Format ribbon only work within the same family. It’s like telling someone to move to the back of the line - they can, but they’ll stay within their own designated queue. So when you try to send a shape (an “Element”) to the back, it goes to the very last layer of the "Elements" family, but it may still render on top of all the objects in the “Visuals” family.
To truly control the stacking order of everything on your canvas and place a shape behind a data visual, you need to step outside the basic formatting ribbon and use a dedicated tool for layering.
The Pro Move: Mastering the Selection Pane
The Selection Pane is your command center for object layering in Power BI. It gives you a complete list of every single item on your report page - from the background image to the tiniest text box - and allows you to reorder them with a simple drag-and-drop. Forcing a shape behind a visual is incredibly easy once you know where to look.
How to Open and Use the Selection Pane
Here’s the step-by-step process to get full control over your design elements:
Step 1: Open the Selection PaneOn the main ribbon at the top of Power BI Desktop, click on the View tab. In the "Show panes" section, you'll see a checkbox labeled Selection. Click it.A new pane will appear on the right side of your screen, listing every object currently on your report page.
Step 2: Understand the Layer OrderThe list you see in the Selection Pane represents the stacking order of your objects. It's quite intuitive:
The object at the top of the list is the front-most layer (closest to you).
The object at the bottom of the list is the back-most layer (furthest from you).
If your shape is sitting on top of your visuals, you will find its name near the top of this list.
Step 3: Rename Your Objects for SanityBefore you start dragging things around, do yourself a massive favor and rename your objects. A report page can quickly get cluttered with names like "Shape 5" and "Card 12."In the Selection Pane, simply double-click on an object’s name to rename it to something descriptive. For example:
Rename "Rectangle" to "Background for Sales KPIs."
Rename "Card" to "KPI - Total Revenue."
Rename "Text box" to "Header - Q3 Performance."
This is a non-negotiable best practice for building reports that you or your teammates can actually maintain later on.
Step 4: Drag and Drop to Reorder LayersNow for the main event. To send a shape to the back of everything, simply find its name in the Selection Pane, click it, and drag it all the way to the bottom of the list. That’s it! You will immediately see the shape move behind all other objects on your canvas.You can drag any object up or down in the list to achieve the exact order you need. Want a title text box to sit on top of your background shape but under a brand image? Easy. Just make sure the final order in the Selection Pane (from top to bottom) is: Brand Image, Title Text Box, then Background Shape.
This approach gives you precise, pixel-perfect control that the standard "send to back" buttons can't offer.
A Quick Workaround: Using Grouping to Your Advantage
Sometimes, you just need a quick fix and don’t want to mess with the Selection Pane. In certain situations, grouping can help you force Power BI to treat shapes and visuals as part of the same "family," allowing the simple formatting buttons to work as expected.
This method is best when you have a specific cluster of objects that you want to manage together, like one background shape with three KPI cards on it.
Steps for Layering with Groups:
Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard.
Click to select the shape you want to move and the visual(s) you want it to sit behind.
With all objects selected, right-click on one of them directly on the canvas.
In the context menu, navigate to Group > Group. (Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut
Ctrl + G).
Now, these objects are locked together in a group. You can now use the "Send backward" button with more success. First, click on the group to select it. Then, click a second time on the specific shape inside the group that you want to move. With the shape targeted, go to the "Format" ribbon and click “Send backward.” It should now move behind the other visuals within that group.
The Downside: Grouping creates a rigid structure. It can sometimes be harder to modify individual visuals, and Power BI’s smart alignment guides can behave unpredictably with grouped elements. For full control without these limitations, the Selection Pane is hands-down the superior method.
Tips for Clean and Professional Dashboard Layering
Mastering layering is key to lifting your dashboards from functional to beautiful. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.
Use Shapes for Backgrounds and Sectioning
This is the most common reason you need to master sending shapes to the back. Use large rectangles with subtle background colors (like a light grey) and slight transparency to create distinct containers for your visuals. This breaks up a cluttered report and guides the viewer’s eye through different sections, like "Marketing Performance" and "Sales Pipeline." Send these rectangles to the absolute back to serve as a foundation for your charts.
Rename Everything in the Selection Pane
This is too important not to say again. Open the Selection Pane at the start of your design process. As soon as you add a new element, rename it. Line chart showing sales over time is infinitely better than Line chart. Future you will be very grateful.
Lock Your Background Objects
Once you’ve perfectly positioned your background shapes or images and sent them to the back, lock them in place so you don't accidentally click and drag them while you work. In the Selection Pane, you'll see a small lock icon next to each object's name. Click it to lock the object. This prevents any accidental edits, saving you from frustrating little nudges that throw off your whole design.
Build from a Solid Foundation
When starting a new report page, save yourself a headache by creating the structure first. Lay down all your background shapes, headers, and navigation buttons. Arrange them, send them to the back using the Selection Pane, and then lock them. Once your foundation is set, you can drop your charts and KPIs on top without a fight.
Final Thoughts
While Power BI's default layering behavior can feel unintuitive, the Selection Pane is the definitive solution, giving you complete command over every object on your page. By organizing, renaming, and re-ordering elements there, you can move past formatting problems and spend more time focusing on telling a compelling story with your data.
We believe that creating insightful reports shouldn't require fighting with design menus or hunting for hidden settings. It’s why we built Graphed, where you can simply describe the visuals and dashboards you want to see - like "create a dashboard comparing Facebook Ads spend vs. Shopify revenue" - and our AI builds it instantly. We connect all your data sources and handle the busy work of report creation, so you can go straight from data to decision without getting bogged down in the process.