How to Use Multi-Row Card in Power BI

Displaying a few key metrics together without cluttering your dashboard can be tricky. You need a way to present related pieces of information in a clean, compact, and scannable format. This is exactly where Power BI's Multi-Row Card visual shines, and this guide will show you how to master it step-by-step. We'll cover everything from creating your first card to using formatting tricks to make your data pop.

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What is a Multi-Row Card, and When Should You Use It?

The Multi-Row Card is a simple yet powerful visualization in Power BI that displays multiple related data points in a single container. Think of it as a scannable summary. While the standard Card visual is designed to show a single, crucial number (like total revenue), the Multi-Row Card lets you group several key figures together, with each metric getting its own line.

You’ll find it’s the perfect choice in situations like:

• Displaying Profile Summaries: Quickly show key details for a customer, employee, or product. For a salesperson, you could display their name, total sales, number of new deals, and close rate all in one place.
• Summarizing Project KPIs: List a project's name, manager, due date, budget, and current status in a compact card that can be filtered by project.
• Detailing a Single Item: When a user selects a specific item from a slicer, like a Shopify product, the Multi-Row Card can display its sales, inventory level, average rating, and return rate.

The key is context and brevity. A table shows many rows of detailed data, while a regular card shows one big number. A Multi-Row Card lives in the middle - it provides a handful of summary numbers about a single entity or context.

Creating Your First Multi-Row Card: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let's walk through creating a Multi-Row Card to display key metrics for a specific product. Imagine we have a simple sales dataset with information like product names, categories, sales figures, and units sold.

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Step 1: Get Your Data Ready

Before you build any visual, you need to have your data loaded into Power BI Desktop. For this example, we’ll assume you have a table named ‘Sales’ with columns like Product Name, Region, Total Sales, and Units Sold.

Step 2: Add the Visual to Your Report Canvas

In the Visualizations pane on the right-hand side of your Power BI interface, find the Multi-Row Card icon. It looks like a card with several lines on it. Click it to add a blank visual to your report canvas.

Step 3: Add Your Data Fields

This is where the magic happens. Select your newly added card. In the Visualizations pane, you'll see a bucket labeled Fields. This is where you'll drag the data you want to display.

Let's add the key metrics for our product:

1. Drag Product Name from your ‘Sales’ table into the Fields bucket.
2. Next, drag Total Sales into the same bucket.
3. Finally, drag Units Sold.

You’ll immediately see a card showing what looks like the first product’s details or an aggregation. To make this dynamic and useful, we need to add a way for the user to select which product's details they want to see.

Step 4: Filter for Context

A Multi-Row Card is most effective when it responds to user selections. The easiest way to achieve this is with a Slicer.

1. Deselect your card by clicking on a blank area of the report canvas.
2. In the Visualizations pane, click the Slicer icon.
3. With the new slicer selected, drag the Product Name field into its Field bucket.

Now, when you select a product name from the slicer, the Multi-Row Card will instantly update to show the Total Sales and Units Sold for only that product. You've just created an interactive product summary card.

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Customizing and Formatting Your Multi-Row Card

A default card is functional, but a little formatting can make your data much clearer and more professional. To start formatting, select your Multi-Row Card and click the paintbrush icon ("Format your visual") in the Visualizations pane.

Callout values

These are the primary numbers or text in your card - the values themselves (e.g., "$542,000"). Under this section, you can control:

• Font: Change the font family, size, and style (bold, italic). It's a good practice to make these values large and easy to read.
• Color: Set a custom color for the text.
• Display units: Instead of showing $542,321.55, you can change the units to 'Thousands' or 'Millions' to make it cleaner. Power BI will automatically display '$542K'.

Category labels

These are the names of the fields you added (e.g., "Total Sales," "Units Sold"). Effective labeling provides context without cluttering the visual.

• Show: You can toggle the labels on or off.
• Font and Color: It’s common to make the category labels slightly smaller or a subtler color (like a light grey) than the callout values to create a clear visual hierarchy.

Cards

This section controls the overall card container and can significantly improve its look and feel.

• Title: Every visual needs a clear title. Turn on the Title toggle, give it a name like "Product Snapshot," and format the font and alignment to match your report's style.
• Accent Bar: This is one of the best formatting features. Toggling on the Accent bar adds a thin colored line to the left of your values. You can change its color and thickness. This is a simple trick to add a pop of color and align the card with your brand's theme.
• Outline: Under "Style," you can set border styles. Choosing an outline slightly separates the card from the background and gives it a more defined look.
• Padding: Adjust the spacing between the content and the border to give your text more room to breathe.

Go to 'General' to find the Effects

Under the 'General' tab in the formatting options, the 'Effects' section allows you to adjust the background color and transparency, or add a subtle visual border or shadow to make the card "lift" off the page.

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Multi-Row Cards

Using Measures Instead of Raw Columns

As you get more comfortable with Power BI, you'll start using Measures written in DAX instead of dragging in raw data columns. Multi-Row Cards are perfect for displaying a set of hand-picked measures.

For example, you could create three separate measures:

• Total Sales = SUM('Sales'[SalePrice])
• Avg Sales Per Unit = DIVIDE([Total Sales], SUM('Sales'[UnitsSold]))
• Customer Count = DISTINCTCOUNT('Sales'[CustomerID])

Instead of dragging columns into the Fields well, you would drag these three measures in. This gives you limitless control over the calculations displayed in your card.

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Applying Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting helps you highlight performance instantly by changing colors based on your data. For example, let's make the Total Sales callout value green if it's over $500,000 and red if it's not.

1. Select your card and go to the Format your visual pane.
2. Expand the Callout values section.
3. In the Apply settings to dropdown, select the series you want to format (e.g., Total Sales).
4. Click the fx button next to the Color option. This opens the conditional formatting window.
5. Set the Format style to ‘Rules’.
6. Create a rule: If value is greater than or equal to 500000 (number) and less than a very large number, then the color should be green.
7. Add another rule: If value is greater than 0 and less than 500000, then the color should be red.

Click 'OK'. Now, your Total Sales figure will dynamically change color based on performance, giving your users at-a-glance insights.

Final Thoughts

You now have a complete guide to using the Multi-Row Card in Power BI. It's a versatile visual that, combined with slicers and smart formatting, can transform how you present summary data. Start by building simple profile cards and then experiment with measures and conditional formatting to take your dashboards to the next level.

Bringing all your data into a tool like Power BI and manually building these reports is powerful, but it’s still a lot of clicking, dragging, and formatting. We designed Graphed because we believe getting data insights shouldn't require a steep learning curve. Instead of navigating menus, you simply describe what you want in plain English, like, “Show me total sales and units sold for our 'Pro Laptop Stand' in a multi-line format.” Graphed connects to your data sources and instantly builds the visual for you, turning hours of report building into a 30-second task.