How to Show Data in Power BI

Bringing your data to life in Power BI is all about using visuals to tell a clear and persuasive story. Instead of staring at endless rows of numbers in a spreadsheet, you can create interactive charts and graphs that make trends, outliers, and key metrics immediately obvious. This guide will walk you through exactly how to connect your data sources, select the right visualizations, and arrange them into a professional report that everyone can understand.

Before You Begin: Getting Your Data into Power BI

You can't visualize data that isn't there, so the first step is always to connect your data source. Power BI makes this simple with its "Get Data" feature, which supports hundreds of connectors for everything from simple files to complex cloud databases.

The most common data sources include:

• Excel workbooks
• CSV (comma-separated values) files
• SQL Server databases
• Web pages (by pulling data from HTML tables)
• Cloud services like SharePoint, Azure, and Salesforce

A Quick Example: Connecting to an Excel File

Let's say you have an Excel file with your sales data. To connect it:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and go to the Home ribbon.
2. Click on Get Data. A drop-down menu appears.
3. Select Excel workbook.
4. Navigate to your file, select it, and click Open.
5. A "Navigator" window will pop up, showing you all the tables and sheets within your workbook. Check the box next to the table or sheet you want to import.
6. Click Load to bring the data directly into your Power BI report. If your data needs cleaning first (like renaming columns or changing data types), click Transform Data to open the Power Query Editor.

Once your data is loaded, you'll see your tables and their columns appear in the Fields pane on the right-hand side of the screen. Now you're ready to start building.

Creating Your First Visualization

The Power BI interface is divided into three main sections: the Fields pane (your data), the Visualizations pane (your chart types), and the canvas (where your report comes to life). Creating a visual is a simple process of dragging and dropping fields onto the canvas or into the wells of a selected chart type.

Let’s build a simple column chart to show sales amount by product category.

1. Select a visual: In the Visualizations pane, click the icon for a "Stacked column chart." An empty visual placeholder will appear on your canvas.
2. Add the data: From the Fields pane, find your Sales Amount field and drag it into the "Y-axis" well in the Visualizations pane. Then, find your Product Category field and drag it to the "X-axis" well.
3. See the result: Just like that, Power BI generates a column chart on your canvas. It automatically aggregates your sales data for each product category and displays it visually.

You can resize the visual by clicking and dragging its corners and move it by clicking and dragging the visual itself. Easy!

Choosing the Right Visual for Your Data

While making a chart is easy, choosing the right chart is what truly delivers insight. The visual you select depends on the story you want to tell. Here’s a breakdown of common visual types and when to use them.

For Comparing Values: Bar and Column Charts

The most common visual for comparing values across different categories. Use them when you want to see which category is biggest or smallest.

• Column Charts (Vertical Bars): Best for when you have a small number of categories and need to compare their values directly. They're also great for showing data over time (e.g., sales per month).
• Bar Charts (Horizontal Bars): Ideal when you have long category names that are hard to read on a column chart's x-axis.

Example: Use a column chart to show Total Revenue per Salesperson.

For Showing Trends Over Time: Line and Area Charts

Whenever you have a date or time field, a line chart is an excellent choice. It’s perfect for spotting trends, seasonality, and sudden changes over a continuous period.

• Line Charts: Connect individual data points, making it easy to see the trend of a metric like Website Sessions per Day.
• Area Charts: Are line charts with the area below the line filled in. They are useful for showing the magnitude of change over time, especially when comparing multiple series.

Example: Use a line chart to track Website Visitors per Month for the past year.

For Showing Parts of a Whole: Pie and Donut Charts

Use these charts to show composition - how individual parts make up a whole. They're effective for displaying proportions or percentages.

A word of caution: Pie charts become difficult to read if you have more than 5 or 6 categories. If you do, a bar chart is often a better choice.

Example: Use a pie chart to display Market Share by Region.

For Displaying a Single Key Metric: Cards

Sometimes you just need to show a single, important number in a big, bold way. That's what Cards are for. They're perfect for displaying key performance indicators (KPIs) like total revenue, number of users, or average order value.

Example: Use a Card to show Total Sales for the Current Quarter.

For Showing Geographical Data: Maps

If your data includes geographical information like cities, states, countries, or postal codes, Power BI can plot this information on a map. This is fantastic for visualizing regional performance or distribution patterns.

• Map: Uses bubbles or points to show values for specific locations.
• Filled Map: Colors entire regions (like states or countries) based on their value, making it easy to spot geographic trends.

Example: Use a filled map to see Number of Customers by State.

For Raw Detail: Tables and Matrices

Sometimes you just need to see the numbers. Tables provide a straightforward grid view of your data, similar to a spreadsheet. A Matrix is like a pivot table, allowing you to group data by rows and columns with subtotals.

Example: Use a matrix to show a detailed sales breakdown with Product Category as rows, Year as columns, and Sales Amount as the values.

Customizing and Formatting Your Visuals

A default chart gets the information across, but a well-formatted chart looks professional and is easier to read. Power BI gives you complete control over the look and feel of your visuals.

To customize a visual:

1. Click on the visual you want to edit.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click the paintbrush icon to open the Format visual tab.

Here, you can adjust dozens of options, including:

• Titles: Change the text, font, size, and color of your chart's title.
• X-axis and Y-axis: Customize labels, colors, and line styles. You can also turn axes off entirely.
• Data Labels: Turn on data labels to show the exact value for each bar or data point directly on the chart.
• Colors: Manually change the colors for each series or apply a consistent color theme across your entire report.

Making Your Report Interactive with Slicers

One of the most powerful features of Power BI is its interactivity. By default, clicking on a data point in one visual (like a specific product category in a bar chart) will filter and highlight the related data in all other visuals on the page. In addition to this cross-filtering, you can provide dedicated filter controls with Slicers.

A slicer is an on-canvas filter that lets your audience easily segment the data. For example, you could add a slicer for Year.

To create a slicer:

1. Make sure no visuals are selected on your canvas.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click the Slicer icon.
3. From the Fields pane, drag the field you want to filter by (e.g., Year) into the "Field" well for the slicer.

Power BI will create a filtering control - like a list, dropdown, or slider - that anyone viewing the report can use to drill down into the data that matters most to them.

Final Thoughts

Effectively showing data in Power BI involves a simple yet powerful process: connecting to your sources, choosing visuals that tell the right story, and formatting them for clarity. By combining different charts and interactive slicers, you can build a comprehensive and user-friendly dashboard that turns raw data into actionable insights.

While Power BI is a fantastic tool, it still comes with a learning curve and hours spent on manual report creation. At Graphed we simplify this process even further. We help you connect all your marketing and sales data sources in seconds, then let you build dashboards and reports by simply describing what you want in plain English. No need to hunt for the right chart type or drag and drop fields — just ask a question, and we build the visualization for you in real-time, helping you get from data to decision faster.