From my 3 years of experience, creating dashboards for different clients in the organization and outside of it these are some of things I have learned.
- Make use of Power BI templates: Power BI has a number of templates that can help you get started quickly with your visualizations and dashboards. You can find these templates in the “Files” section of the Power BI service or in the “Get Data” section of the Power BI Desktop.
- Use calculated columns and measures: Calculated columns and measures are a powerful feature in Power BI that allow you to perform complex calculations and data manipulations within your data models. Use them to create new columns, summarize data, and perform mathematical operations on your data.
- Use conditional formatting: Conditional formatting allows you to highlight specific data points or ranges based on a set of conditions. This can be useful for calling attention to important data or for visualizing data trends.
- Make use of drillthrough and drilldown: Drillthrough and drilldown allow you to explore your data at different levels of detail. For example, you can drilldown from a high-level dashboard to a lower-level report, or drillthrough from a summary report to an individual data point.
- Use the Q&A feature: Power BI’s Q&A feature allows you to ask natural language questions about your data and get answers in the form of interactive visualizations. This is a great way to quickly explore your data and uncover insights.
- Take advantage of Power BI’s integrations: Power BI integrates with a number of other tools and services, such as Excel, SharePoint, and Azure. Use these integrations to bring your data into Power BI and to share your reports and dashboards with others.
- Make use of the DAX language: DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a formula language that is used in Power BI to perform complex calculations and manipulations on your data. Learning DAX will give you the ability to create custom calculations, measures, and columns that can be used in your reports and dashboards.
- Use Power BI Report Server for on-premise deployment: If you need to deploy your Power BI reports and dashboards on-premise, consider using Power BI Report Server. This allows you to host your reports and dashboards within your own infrastructure, while still taking advantage of the features and functionality of Power BI.
- Make use of Power BI premium: Power BI premium is a paid version of Power BI that provides additional features and resources for heavy usage scenarios. If you have a large number of users, large amounts of data, or need to ensure high performance, consider upgrading to Power BI premium.
- Keep your data up-to-date: Power BI is most useful when your data is up-to-date. Consider using Power BI’s data refresh and DirectQuery options to ensure that your reports and dashboards always reflect the latest information.