How to Add Navigator in Power BI
Tired of users getting lost clicking through the different pages of your Power BI report? Creating an intuitive, app-like experience is easier than you think. This guide will walk you through using Power BI's built-in Navigator features to build clean, professional, and easy-to-use navigation for your dashboards.
What Exactly is a Navigator in Power BI?
Think of a navigator as a dynamic menu or a table of contents for your report. Instead of forcing users to rely on the small page tabs at the bottom of the screen, a navigator provides a set of clean, clickable buttons directly on the report canvas. When you add a new page or a new view, the navigator can update automatically, saving you time and ensuring your navigation is always current.
Using navigators instantly makes your reports feel more like polished applications and less like spreadsheets. The main benefits are:
Improved User Experience: It provides a clear, centrally located roadmap for your users to find what they need.
Guided Analytics: You can control the user's journey, guiding them through the data story you’ve built.
Professional Polish: Custom-designed navigation elements give your reports a clean, branded, and professional appearance.
Power BI offers two primary types of navigators: the Page Navigator and the Bookmark Navigator. Let’s break down how to create and customize each one.
How to Add a Page Navigator for Simple Navigation
The Page Navigator is the quickest way to create a menu. It automatically generates a button for every visible report page, creating a simple and effective navigation bar in seconds.
Step-by-Step Instructions
It only takes a few clicks to get started:
Navigate to the Insert tab on the Power BI ribbon.
Click the Buttons dropdown menu.
Hover over Navigator.
Select Page Navigator.
That's it! A set of buttons corresponding to your report pages will appear on your canvas. Power BI automatically links each button to its respective page and even highlights the button for the page you are currently viewing. If you add, rename, or remove a page, the navigator updates automatically.
Customizing Your Page Navigator
The default navigator is functional, but you'll probably want to style it to match your report's design. With the navigator selected, open the Format pane to access a wide range of customization options.
Here are the most important settings to change:
Shape: Under the Shape dropdown, you can change the buttons from the default rectangle to a pill shape, an arrow, or dozens of other options to better fit your aesthetic. You can also adjust properties like rounded corners.
Style: This is where you control the look and feel. The Style section has tabs for different button states:
Default: How the buttons look normally.
Hover: How a button looks when a user's mouse is over it.
Press: How a button looks while being clicked.
Selected: How the button for the current, active page looks.
For each state, you can change the text font, size, color, and padding. You can also change the button’s fill color, border, and add a shadow or glow effect.
Layout: Under the Grid Layout dropdown, you can change the navigator's orientation from horizontal to vertical. You can also adjust the space between the buttons. A vertical layout works perfectly for a sidebar-style navigation menu.
Pages: By default, the navigator shows all visible pages. If you want to exclude a page (like a hidden “Details” page used for drillthrough), first hide it from the report view by right-clicking its tab and selecting Hide Page. If you want to keep the page visible but exclude it from the navigator, you can un-toggle Show hidden pages under this section.
Practical Tip:
Place your Page Navigator in the same spot on every page of your report. You can easily copy and paste the formatted navigator from one page to another to maintain a consistent user experience.
How to Add a Bookmark Navigator for Custom Views
The Bookmark Navigator is where things get really powerful. While a Page Navigator moves users between different pages, a Bookmark Navigator lets them switch between different views on a single page. This allows you to create interactive experiences, like toggling between two different charts, showing or hiding a filter pane, or switching the metric a visual is displaying.
This process takes a few more steps, but it unlocks a new level of interactivity for your reports.
Step 1: Create Your Bookmarks
Before you can add a Bookmark Navigator, you need to create the bookmarks themselves. A bookmark is simply a saved state of a report page.
First, set up your page for the initial view. For example, let's say you want to toggle between a "Sales by Category" bar chart and a "Sales by Country" map. Make the bar chart visible and the map hidden. (You can hide visuals using the Selection pane, found under the View tab).
Once your page is ready for the first view, open the Bookmarks pane, also under the View tab.
Click Add to create your first bookmark. Give it a descriptive name, like “Sales by Category View”.
Now, configure the second view. In the Selection pane, hide the bar chart and make the map visible.
In the Bookmarks pane, click Add again and name this new bookmark "Sales by Country View".
Important Note: Next to each bookmark are three dots (...) for more options. Be mindful of the "Data" property. If "Data" is checked, the bookmark will save the current state of any filters and slicers. If you uncheck it, the bookmark will only change the visuals' visibility without impacting user filter selections.
Step 2: Group Your Bookmarks
Your report might have dozens of bookmarks for different purposes. To tell the navigator which specific set of bookmarks to use, you need to group them.
In the Bookmarks pane, select the bookmarks you just created by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each one.
With them selected, click the Group option at the top of the pane.
Give the group a clear name, such as “Chart Toggle”. This is the group you'll link the navigator to.
Step 3: Insert and Configure the Bookmark Navigator
Now you are ready to add the navigator itself.
Just like before, go to Insert > Buttons > Navigator > Bookmark Navigator.
A navigator with all your bookmarks will appear. We only want it to show the two in our group.
With the navigator selected, go to the Format pane and find the Bookmarks section.
In the dropdown menu, select the bookmark group you just created — in our case, “Chart Toggle”.
The navigator will now display only two buttons: "Sales by Category View" and "Sales by Country View." When you click them, the visuals will toggle just as you configured. The customization options are exactly the same as the Page Navigator, so you can easily style it to match your report.
Best Practices for Report Navigation
Building effective navigation is about more than just adding buttons. It’s about creating a frictionless experience for your audience.
Keep Names Simple and Clear: Name your pages and bookmarks logically from a user's perspective. Use "Sales KPI Summary" instead of "SalesPg_V2_Final." The names you use for pages and bookmarks are what appear on the buttons.
Build a Landing Page: For complex reports, create a dedicated "Home" or "Menu" page. This page can feature a Page Navigator and a few high-level KPIs that guide users to the most important sections of the report.
Always Provide an "Out": Nothing is more frustrating than getting stuck in a detailed view. Make sure every drillthrough or detail page has a clear "Back" button (found under Insert > Buttons > Back) that takes the user to their previous screen.
Create a Reset Button: Users love to slice and dice data, but they often want an easy way to get back to the default state. Create a bookmark with no filters applied and call it "Reset Filters." You can then link a simple Button or an image of a "reset" icon to this bookmark.
Final Thoughts
Mastering Power BI's Page and Bookmark Navigators is a game-changer for anyone looking to build professional-grade reports. By moving beyond the default tabs and designing an intentional user journey, you transform your analyses from a collection of charts into an interactive and insightful data application that people will actually want to use.
Creating intuitive dashboards like this is all about making data accessible to everyone on your team. At Graphed, we designed our platform around this very idea. We believe that getting answers from your data shouldn't require clicking through format panes or mastering complex tools. Instead of manually building navigators and configuring bookmarks, you can simply ask for the dashboard you need in plain English. We instantly connect to all your live marketing and sales data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce - and build the dashboards and reports for you in seconds.