How to Build Visuals in Power BI

Creating visuals in Power BI is how you transform spreadsheets of raw data into compelling stories that everyone can understand. It's the core of what makes Power BI so effective for business analytics. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to build your first charts, format them professionally, and choose the right visual for your data.

We'll start with the absolute basics of adding a chart to your report and then cover different visual types and some helpful tips to make your reports interactive and clear.

Getting Started: The Power BI Interface and Your Data

Before you can build a visual, you first need to bring data into Power BI Desktop. You can connect to hundreds of data sources - from Excel files and CSVs to SQL databases and cloud services - using the Get Data button on the Home ribbon. Once your data is loaded, it appears in the Fields pane on the right side of your screen. This list represents all the tables and columns available for you to analyze.

Understanding the main workspace is straightforward:

• The large central area is the report canvas - this is where you'll build and arrange your visuals.
• To the right of the canvas are three critical panes: Filters, Visualizations, and Fields.
• The Fields pane contains your data, organized into tables.
• The Visualizations pane provides the tools to create and modify your charts.
• The Filters pane lets you apply filters to your data at various levels (visual, page, or entire report).

Think of the Fields pane as your buffet of ingredients (data) and the Visualizations pane as your kitchen appliances (charts) for preparing your meal (the report).

Creating Your First Power BI Visual: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let's build a simple yet common visual: a clustered column chart showing total sales by product category. This is a classic report element that nearly every business needs.

Step 1: Select a Visual Type

In the Visualizations pane, you'll see a gallery of icons. Each one represents a different type of visual (bar chart, line chart, pie chart, etc.). Click on the icon for the 'Clustered column chart'. Power BI will immediately place a gray, empty placeholder for that visual on your report canvas.

Step 2: Add Data to the Visual

With the new blank visual selected (you'll know it's selected by the border around it), turn your attention to the Fields pane.

• Find the field that represents your product categories (e.g., 'Category'). Drag it from the Fields pane and drop it into the X-axis well under the Visualizations pane.
• Next, find the field for your sales data (e.g., 'Sales'). Drag it and drop it into the Y-axis well.

Just like that, the placeholder on your canvas will transform into a fully functional column chart. You can also add more detail. For example, dragging a 'Region' field into the Legend well would break down each category column by region, showing you which regions contribute most to each category's sales.

Understanding the Visualizations Pane in Detail

The Visualizations pane is your main control center for report creation. It's where you choose, build, and format every visual. It's composed of two main tabs: 'Build visual' and 'Format visual'.

Building Your Visual (The 'Fields' Wells)

When you select a visual, the 'Build visual' section shows a series of "wells" or buckets specific to that chart type. These wells tell Power BI where to place your data. While they change depending on the visual, common ones include:

• X-axis / Y-axis: Used for bar, column, and line charts to define the horizontal and vertical axes.
• Values: This is for the numeric data you want to measure, such as sales, quantity, or cost. Power BI automatically aggregates this data (usually by summing it, but you can change it to average, count, etc.).
• Legend: Use this to break down your data by a second category. For example, you could show sales by category (Axis) and slice it by year (Legend).
• Small multiples: This powerful feature creates mini-charts for each value in a category - for instance, a separate sales trend line chart for each product.
• Tooltips: Fields added here appear in a pop-up box when you hover your mouse over a data point, providing extra context without cluttering the visual.

Formatting Your Visual

A default chart is useful, but formatting is how you make it clean, on-brand, and easy to read. Click the 'Format visual' tab (it looks like a paintbrush) to find a huge list of customization options.

Here you can control almost every element of your chart’s appearance through different sections:

• General: Adjust the visual's title, position, and background under this tab. You can also add effects like borders and shadows.
• Visual: This tab contains formatting options specific to the selected chart type.

Pro Tip: Spend time exploring the formatting options. Clear titles, clean axes, and intentional color choices can elevate a simple report into a professional and persuasive dashboard.

A Quick Guide to Essential Visuals in Power BI

Once you’ve mastered the column chart, expanding your reporting arsenal is simple. Here are some of the most common Power BI visuals and when you should use them.

Tables and Matrices

Use a Table for a simple, two-dimensional view of data. It's great for lists of precise values. A Matrix is a more advanced version that acts like a pivot table in Excel. It supports a stepped layout and allows users to drill down into hierarchical data (e.g., breaking down sales by year, then quarter, then month).

Line and Area Charts

These are the best choice for showing trends over a continuous period, like time. Use a Line Chart to track metrics like website sessions per day, revenue per month, or stock prices over time. An Area Chart is similar but with the space between the line and the axis filled in, which is useful for emphasizing the magnitude of volume or change.

Pie and Donut Charts

Pie and Donut Charts are effective at showing a part-to-whole relationship - for example, the percentage of total sales coming from each region. However, they become difficult to read with too many slices. As a best practice, limit them to five or six categories for clarity.

Maps

If your data includes geographic information like city, state, or country, Power BI’s map visuals are invaluable. The basic Map visual places dots on a map, where the size of the dot can represent a value like sales or population. The Filled Map visual colors in the entire geographic area (like a state or country) based on its value.

Cards and KPIs

The Card and Multi-row Card are perfect for showcasing a single, crucial number, like total revenue, number of open support tickets, or average order value. Use these to highlight your most important key performance indicators (KPIs) at the top of your report for at-a-glance understanding.

Tips for Creating Better, More Interactive Reports

Once you have a few visuals on your canvas, you can make them work together to create a powerful, interactive experience.

1. Use Slicers for Filtering

A slicer is a type of on-canvas filter that lets users easily segment the data. Add a Slicer visual from the Visualizations pane and drop in a field like 'Year' or 'Country'. This creates buttons or a dropdown menu that filters all other visuals on the report page, letting your audience explore the data on their own.

2. Let Visuals Interact with Each Other

By default, visuals on the same page are connected. Clicking on a bar in one chart (e.g., the 'Electronics' category) will automatically filter or highlight the corresponding data in all other visuals. This cross-filtering behavior is one of Power BI's most powerful features for discovering relationships in your data that you might have otherwise missed.

3. Apply a Report Theme

To ensure a consistent look and feel, use themes. Under the View tab, you can select from several pre-built themes that control the default colors, fonts, and styles for all visuals in your report. This saves you from formatting each chart individually and ensures your report looks professional and aligns with your company's branding.

Final Thoughts

Building visuals in Power BI is a process of selecting a chart, assigning data to its fields, and formatting it for clarity. With these core skills, you can start turning complex datasets into dashboards that provide real value, helping your team make better, data-driven decisions without needing a deep technical background.

If you're looking for an even faster way to get answers from your marketing and sales data, we built Graphed for teams who don't have time to master tools like Power BI. Instead of clicking and dragging, you can simply connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Shopify) and describe the dashboard you need in plain English. Graphed automatically builds real-time, interactive reports in seconds, letting you go from question to insight in a fraction of the time.