What Are Tool Tips in Power BI?

If you've ever hovered your mouse over a chart in Power BI and seen a small pop-up box with details, you've already used a tooltip. They’re a fantastic way to add layers of information to your reports without cluttering the main view. This article will show you exactly what tooltips are, the different types you can create, and provide a step-by-step guide to building your own powerful, custom tooltips from scratch.

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What Exactly Is a Tooltip?

At its core, a tooltip is a small, context-sensitive window that appears when you hover over a specific data point in a visualization. Think of it as an interactive label. Instead of trying to cram every piece of data onto a single chart, tooltips allow your audience to explore the data by simply moving their cursor. The primary goal is to provide additional details on-demand, keeping your main dashboard clean and focused on the big picture.

By default, Power BI automatically creates a basic tooltip for most visuals. For instance, if you hover over a bar in a column chart showing "Sales by Country," the default tooltip will likely show you two pieces of information: the exact name of the country and the precise sales figure for that bar. It’s simple, effective, and requires no setup.

But the real power comes from customization. Power BI gives you the ability to go far beyond these defaults, allowing you to control exactly what information appears and even how that information is visualized within the tooltip itself. This transforms your report from a static display into an interactive and exploratory experience.

The Two Main Types of Tooltips in Power BI

You have two primary options when working with tooltips: the standard, slightly customizable ones, and the far more powerful report page tooltips.

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1. Standard (Default) Tooltips

This is the out-of-the-box experience. Power BI generates these automatically based on the data fields you’ve used to create your visual. If your bar chart uses "Country" on the X-axis and "Sum of Sales" on the Y-axis, the tooltip will show you that information for whichever bar you hover over.

You do have some light customization options here. You can add more data fields to this default tooltip. For example, in addition to sales by country, maybe you also want to see the "Total Customers" for that country in the tooltip. You can do this by dragging the "Customers" field into a specific area in the Visualizations pane called the "Tooltips" field well.

How to Add Data to a Standard Tooltip:

• Select the visual you want to modify (e.g., your bar chart).
• In the Visualizations pane, find the fields you used to build the chart (under Y-axis, X-axis, etc.).
• Below those, you’ll see a bucket labeled Tooltips.
• Drag any additional measure or column you want to display from your Data pane into this "Tooltips" bucket.

Now, when you hover over a bar, the standard tooltip will appear with this extra information included in the list. It’s a quick and easy way to add a bit more context without much effort.

2. Report Page Tooltips: A Complete Game-Changer

This is where things get truly exciting. A report page tooltip allows you to use an entirely separate report page as your tooltip. Instead of a simple text box, you can design a small, custom-built canvas with its own set of visuals, cards, images, and text. When a user hovers over a data point on your main chart, this custom page will pop up.

Imagine hovering over a country on a map visual and seeing a tooltip that contains:

• A Card visual showing the total revenue for that country.
• A small line chart showing the sales trend over the last 12 months.
• A table listing the top 3 performing products.
• An image of that country's flag.

This level of interactivity provides a rich, layered data story. Your end-users can see high-level trends on the main page and effortlessly drill into the specifics for any data point that captures their attention. You are essentially creating a mini-report that is contextually filtered by whatever data point the user is exploring.

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Step-by-Step Guide: How to Create a Custom Report Page Tooltip

Building a report page tooltip involves two main phases: designing the tooltip page itself and then connecting it to a visual in your main report. Let’s walk through the process.

Step 1: Create a New Page for Your Tooltip

First, you need a dedicated canvas for your tooltip design. In the bottom left of Power BI Desktop, click the '+' icon to add a new page. It’s a good practice to give it a descriptive name. Right-click the new page tab and rename it to something like "Country Details Tooltip" so you can easily identify it later.

Step 2: Set the Page Information

This is the most critical step. You need to tell Power BI that this isn't a standard report page, but one that can be used as a tooltip.

1. Make sure you have no visuals selected on your new tooltip page. Click on the gray background area of the canvas.
2. Go to the Format pane (the paintbrush icon).
3. Expand the Page information section.
4. Toggle the switch for Allow use as tooltip to On.

The moment you do this, Power BI recognizes this page as a potential tooltip you can assign to other visuals.

Step 3: Adjust the Canvas Size

By default, report pages are sized like standard slides (16:9 aspect ratio), which is far too large for a pop-up tooltip. Power BI has a preset size just for this.

1. With the page still selected, stay in the Format pane and find the Canvas settings section.
2. Click on the Type dropdown.
3. Change it from the default (e.g., 16:9) to Tooltip.

You'll see your page canvas immediately shrink down to a small rectangle. To make designing on this small space easier, go to the View tab in the top ribbon, click on Page view, and select Fit to Page. This will zoom in and make the small canvas fill your screen.

Step 4: Design Your Tooltip with Visuals

Now for the creative part! Treat this small canvas just like any other report page. Drag fields from your Data pane and choose visuals from the Visualizations pane to build out your custom tooltip.

Some tips for designing your tooltip:

• Use Cards: Card visuals are perfect for showing single, high-impact numbers like Total Sales, Average Order Value, or Customer Count.
• Include Trend Lines: A small line or area chart can show performance over time, giving immediate historical context.
• Keep It Simple: Don't try to cram too much in. A clean, organized tooltip with 2-4 key visuals is far more effective than a cluttered mess.
• Data Filtering is Automatic: Whatever data field you’re using on your main visual (e.g., 'Country') will automatically filter all the visuals on your tooltip page. So, if you hover over "Germany" on your map, all the cards and charts in your tooltip will automatically show data for Germany only.

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Step 5: Connect the Tooltip to Your Main Visual

Once your tooltip page is designed, the final step is to tell your main visual to use it.

1. Navigate back to your main report page (the one with the map, bar chart, or other visual you want to enhance).
2. Click to select the specific visual you want the tooltip to apply to.
3. Go to its Format pane.
4. Click on the General tab at the top of the pane.
5. Expand the Tooltips section. You might see the 'On' switch already active.
6. Under Options, change the Type dropdown box from "Default" to Report page.
7. A new dropdown menu named Page will appear below it. Select the name of the tooltip page you created (e.g., "Country Details Tooltip").

Step 6: Test Your New Tooltip!

That's it! Hover your mouse over different data points on the visual you just configured. Instead of the default black box, your beautifully designed, multi-visual report page tooltip will now appear, displaying rich, contextual data for each item you explore.

Best Practices for Effective Tooltips

Creating tooltips is easy, but creating great tooltips requires a bit of thought. Here are a few final tips to keep in mind:

• Prioritize Readability: Choose clear fonts and visuals. Avoid visuals that are too dense, like large tables or detailed scatter plots, as they can be hard to read in a small space.
• Think About Performance: Very complex tooltips with many visuals and intricate DAX measures can sometimes cause a slight delay before they appear. Test the user experience and simplify if it feels sluggish.
• Maintain Consistent Design: Use the same color themes, fonts, and branding on your tooltip page as you do in your main report. This creates a cohesive and professional feel.
• Add a Title: It can be helpful to add a dynamic title to your tooltip page. For example, add a card visual and drop the 'Country' field into it. This will make it act like a title that updates based on what the user is hovering over ("Germany," "France," etc.).

Final Thoughts

Tooltips are an incredibly powerful feature in Power BI, transforming your static reports into dynamic, explorable dashboards. By moving beyond the defaults and designing custom report page tooltips, you empower your audience to dig deeper into the data and discover insights for themselves, all within a clean and user-friendly interface.

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