How to Use KPI in Power BI

The standard Power BI KPI visual is one of the quickest ways to see if you’re hitting your targets. It gives you an immediate, high-level snapshot of your performance in a single number, a trend, and a clear red or green indicator. This article will walk you through exactly what a KPI visual is, how to prepare your data, and the step-by-step process for creating and customizing one in your own reports.

What Exactly Is a KPI Visualization in Power BI?

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that tracks how effectively you're meeting your main business goals. You likely follow them every day: New Customers Acquired, Monthly Revenue, Website Conversion Rate, or Average Deal Size. These are the headline numbers that tell you if you're winning or losing.

While you can use many different visuals to track these numbers, Power BI has a specific visualization called "KPI" built for this exact purpose. It’s not just a card showing a number, it’s designed to provide context at a glance. It packs three key pieces of information into one small, efficient package:

• Indicator: This is the main value you are currently measuring. It's the "what is" number. For example, if your report shows data for the current month, the indicator would be the total revenue for this month so far.
• Trend axis: This is a line chart in the background that shows how the indicator has performed over time. It gives a quick visual history leading up to the current value, helping you spot upward or downward trends without needing a separate chart.
• Target goals: This is the value your indicator is being measured against. It’s the "what it should be" number. The visual automatically calculates the percentage difference between your indicator and your target and color-codes it to tell you if you're on track.

The real power of this visual is its simplicity. In a single second, a stakeholder can look at it and understand three things: Where are we now? How did we get here? And, how far are we from our goal?

Preparing Your Data for a KPI Visual

Before you jump into creating the visual, you need to make sure your data is structured correctly. You can't just connect to a random dataset and expect the KPI visual to work, it relies on having specific corresponding values. At a minimum, your dataset should contain these three components:

1. A Base Value (The Indicator)

This is the numerical column that holds the performance metric you want to measure. It needs to be a value that can be summed, averaged, or counted.

• Example: A column titled Sales Amount, Pageviews, or Number of Leads.

2. A Time Value (The Trend Axis)

To show the background trend line, Power BI needs a time-based field, like a date or month. Make sure this column is formatted as a Date type in the Power Query Editor or in the Data view so Power BI can properly chart it over time.

• Example: A column titled Order Date or Transaction Month.

3. A Target Value (The Goal)

Power BI needs a goal value to compare the indicator against. This can be more flexible than the other fields. It could be:

• A column in your dataset: This is the simplest method. For every row of sales data, you could have a corresponding column named Sales Target for that month or quarter.
• A separate measure: You can create a DAX measure that defines a static or dynamic target. For instance, a measure could set a fixed target like Sales Goal = 50000.
• An aggregated value: Your target could even be another aggregated field in your dataset, like comparing this month's sales to last month's sales.

For beginners, the easiest approach is to create a simple table in Excel or Google Sheets with your actuals, your targets, and a date, and then load that into Power BI.

Your source data could look as simple as this:

Month | SalesAmount | SalesTarget Jan-24 | 45,000 | 50,000 Feb-24 | 55,000 | 50,000 Mar-24 | 62,000 | 60,000 Apr-24 | 58,000 | 60,000

With this structure, you have everything you need to build a clear and functional KPI visual.

Step-by-Step: Creating Your First KPI in Power BI

Once your data is ready, building the actual visualization only takes a minute. Let's use the simple sales data example from above to create our KPI.

Step 1: Get Data and Select the Visual

First, open Power BI Desktop. In the Home ribbon, click on Get data and connect to your data source (e.g., an Excel workbook). Once loaded, your fields (SalesAmount, SalesTarget, and Month) will appear in the Data pane on the right.

Next, in the Visualizations pane, find and click the KPI icon. It looks like a ribbon or trophy with a trend line. A blank KPI visual placeholder will be added to your report canvas.

Step 2: Map Your Fields to the Visual

With the KPI visual selected on your canvas, you’ll see the fields it requires under the Visualizations pane: Value (which we called the Indicator earlier), Trend axis, and Target.

Simply drag and drop your data fields into the correct buckets:

1. Drag the SalesAmount field into the Value well. This tells Power BI what number to measure.
2. Drag the Month field into the Trend axis well. This gives Power BI the data for the background chart.
3. Drag the SalesTarget field into the Target well. This provides the goal for comparison.

As soon as you populate these fields, the KPI visual will come to life. It will automatically display the total SalesAmount for the latest month in your dataset (in our case, 58,000 for April), show the trend across all months, and compare it to the SalesTarget, showing a green indicator and a percentage because 58k is close to our 60k goal for that month.

Customizing and Formatting Your KPI for Clarity

The default KPI is functional but can be improved with some simple formatting to enhance readability and align with your report's design.

Select your KPI visual, then click the paintbrush icon to open the Format visual pane.

1. Adjust the Callout Value and Icons

The "Callout value" is the main number displayed. Here you can tweak its font, size, and color. You can also change the display units if you're working with large numbers (e.g., millions, billions).

Under "Icons," you can control the size of the green checkmark or red exclamation point. This helps draw the viewer’s eye even before they read the number.

2. Tune the Trend Axis

Here, you can change the color of the trend line to match your dashboard's theme. You can also control the transparency. If the trend axis feels like noise for your specific report, you can simply toggle it off, turning your KPI into a cleaner, card-like visual focused only on the current value and its relation to the target.

3. Clarify the Target and Distance

By default, Power BI shows the target goal below the indicator. Under the "Target" section, you can format the label text for clarity - for example, you could change the default "Goal: [Number]" to something more informative using DAX.

You can also edit how the distance from the goal is displayed. You have options to show the percentage difference, the absolute value difference (e.g., -$2,000), or both.

4. Set the Direction for Color Coding

Under "Formatting options," expand on the Icons or callout value Color Controls. Power BI usually assumes that a higher value is better. But what if you're tracking something like "Expense Budget" or "Customer Churn Rate," where a lower number is the goal?

You need to tell the visual that lower values are good by switching the "Direction" setting from High is good to Low is good. This will reverse the logic, turning the indicator red if you are over your target and green if you are under it.

Advanced Tips for Using KPIs in Power BI

With basic setup and formatting covered, here are a few ways to make your KPI visuals even more powerful and dynamic.

Use DAX for Dynamic Targets

Instead of relying on a static target column from your source data, you can use DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) to create a dynamic measure for your target. This is useful for more complex scenarios, like when your goal is to grow by 10% over the same period last year.

You could create a measure with a formula like this:

Previous Year Sales Target = CALCULATE( SUM(Sales[SalesAmount]), SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR('Calendar'[Date]) ) * 1.10

When you drop this measure into the "Target" field, your goal will automatically update based on historical performance, making your KPI much more intelligent and adaptive.

Combine KPIs with Slicers

KPIs become incredibly interactive when paired with slicers. If your dataset includes different categories such as regions, products, or sales reps, you could add a Slicer visual to your report page. Then when a user selects "North America," the KPI will automatically filter and update to show only the performance for that specific region against its target. This allows users to drill down and explore performance across different business segments from one central visual instead of building multiple new reports.

** **

Final Thoughts

Getting comfortable with the Power BI KPI visual opens up a new level of clarity in your reporting. By combining an indicator, trend, and target, you can communicate performance status in a way that is quick to build and even quicker to understand for your audience.

While Power BI is fantastic for building comprehensive dashboards, sometimes you need immediate answers without getting pulled into a complex report-building process. This reality is why we built Graphed. We connect to your data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce, and allow you to ask questions in plain English - like "what was our sales revenue by product last quarter?" - and get an interactive dashboard built for you in seconds.