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What is a Power BI Template?

Cody Schneider•

A Power BI Template offers a powerful way to streamline your reporting, but what exactly is it? Think of it as a blueprint for your report - a file containing your entire report layout, visuals, data model, and queries, but with one crucial difference: it doesn't contain any of the underlying data. This article will walk you through what Power BI templates are, why they are so valuable, and how you can create and use them to work more efficiently.

What is a Power BI Template (.PBIT File)?

A Power BI Template is a special type of Power BI file saved with a .PBIT extension, rather than the standard .PBIX format. While a standard Power BI report file (.PBIX) includes both the report design and the dataset, a template file only contains the report's structure.

This structure includes everything you've built out in your report:

  • Report Pages and Visuals: The exact layout, formatting, colors, and configuration of all your charts, graphs, tables, and slicers.

  • The Data Model: All the relationships defined between your tables and data sources.

  • DAX Measures and Columns: Any custom calculations you've written, like Year Over Year Growth or Gross Profit Margins.

  • Power Query Transformations: All the steps you've taken to clean, transform, and shape your data - everything from merging columns to filtering rows.

The key takeaway is that the .PBIT file is data-less. When you open a template, Power BI uses it as a mold, prompting you to provide a new data source to pour into it. Once connected, Power BI runs all the saved query steps, builds the data model, computes the measures, and populates your pre-designed visuals with the fresh data. This separation of report structure from the data is what makes templates so efficient.

The Key Benefits of Using Power BI Templates

Adopting templates into your workflow can dramatically improve how you and your team handle report creation. Instead of constantly reinventing the wheel, you can leverage these pre-built structures for consistency and speed.

1. Drive Standardization and Brand Consistency

In any organization, consistency is crucial for creating professional and trustworthy reports. Templates ensure every report adheres to the same standards. You can define a single template with your company's official color palette, logos, font styles, and report layout. When everyone on the team starts from this template, every dashboard produced will automatically have a cohesive look and feel, reinforcing your brand and making reports instantly recognizable and easier for stakeholders to digest.

2. Save Immense Amounts of Time and Effort

Building a great Power BI report takes time. You have to connect to data, perform dozens of steps to clean it in Power Query, painstakingly build a logical data model with relationships, write all of your DAX measures, and then finally design the visual layout. Templates remove 90% of that repetitive work.

Imagine you have to create the same monthly performance report for five different regional branches. Instead of building five reports separately, you create one master report, save it as a template, and then simply open the template five times, each time connecting to a different regional data set. What could take hours of repetitive work becomes a matter of minutes.

3. Simplify Report Distribution

Because .PBIT files don't contain data, they are significantly smaller in file size than their .PBIX counterparts. This makes them incredibly easy to share with colleagues or clients via email or a shared drive without running into file size limitations or long download times. This is especially useful for consultants or agencies who need to provide clients with a pre-configured report structure that they can connect to their own sensitive data sources.

4. Improve Data Security

Sharing a .PBIX file means you're sharing the report and all the embedded data. If your report contains sensitive information like sales or employee data, this can pose a security risk. By sharing a template instead, you're providing the report structure without granting access to underlying data. Clients maintain control of their own data.

5. Streamline Team Collaboration and Onboarding

Power BI templates serve as great educational tools. A new team member can be given a template, pointed to their data sources, and immediately start working on building reports without having to understand every nuance of the data model and measures from scratch. This accelerates their learning process and enables them to contribute quickly.

How to Create a Power BI Template

Creating a Power BI template in Power BI Desktop is straightforward. You can turn any Power BI report (saved as .PBIX) into a .PBIT template by following these steps:

  • Open Your Report: Load your report in Power BI Desktop.

  • Save As Template: Go to the File menu and select Export then Power BI Template. You'll be prompted to provide a description for the template. It's good practice to add a clear description, detailing what the report shows and an example use case.

Final Thoughts

Power BI Templates are a fundamental aspect of building an efficient reporting workflow. By separating the report structure from the underlying data, you can ensure your reports are consistent, save tremendous amounts of time, and distribute your reports more efficiently.