How to Create a Link in Power BI

A Power BI report is great, but a Power BI report with interactive links is a game-changer. Adding hyperlinks transforms your static dashboards into dynamic tools that can navigate to other report pages, filter data, or even open external websites. This guide will show you how to create different types of links in your Power BI reports, from simple text-box links to dynamic URLs inside your tables.

Why Bother Adding Links to Your Reports?

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." Adding links is about making your reports more useful and less cluttered. It empowers your users to find what they need without having to hunt through multiple dashboards or ask you for a different view.

Here are a few common scenarios where links are incredibly valuable:

• Detailed Drill-Downs: On a summary dashboard, you could have a link next to each product category that jumps to a separate report page with a detailed breakdown for just that category.
• External Resources: Imagine a sales performance table. You could add a link on each salesperson's name that opens their profile in Salesforce or a link on a specific deal that opens the contract in a shared drive.
• Providing Context: You can link directly to the data source, a specific invoice, or a social media campaign mentioned in the report, giving users immediate context without cluttering the visuals.
• Improving Navigation: For complex, multi-page reports, dedicating a navigation bar with buttons linked to different pages creates a much better user experience than relying on the default tabs.

Essentially, links connect your data to action and context, making your dashboards the true central hub they're meant to be.

Method 1: The Quick and Easy Static Link (Text Boxes & Shapes)

The simplest way to add a hyperlink is by using a text box, shape, or image. This method is perfect for static links that don't need to change based on your data, such as a link to your company website, a shared folder, or a primary documentation page.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Insert an Element: In your Power BI Desktop report, go to the Insert tab on the top ribbon. Choose either Text box, Buttons, or Shapes. Let’s use a text box for this example.
2. Add Your Text: Click inside the text box and type the text you want users to see, like "Visit Our Website" or "View Quarterly Sales Deck."
3. Add the Link: Select the text box (click on its border). The Format pane will appear on the right side of the screen.
4. Enable the Action: Scroll down in the Format pane until you find the Action section. Toggle it to On.
5. Configure the Action:

That's it! When you publish your report, users can now click that text box to open the link in a new browser tab. You can use the same process for shapes and buttons, making it easy to create visually distinct clickable areas in your header or footer.

Method 2: Creating Dynamic Links in a Table or Matrix

This is where things get really powerful. Often, you'll have a list of items in a table - like product names, blog posts, or customer IDs - and you'll want each one to link to a unique URL. For example, each row with a product name could link directly to its page on your Shopify store.

This requires having a column in your data that contains the full URLs.

Step 1: Set the Data Category

Power BI needs to know that a specific column in your data is meant to be treated as a web address. Telling it this is simple.

1. Go to the Data View: In Power BI Desktop, click on the Data icon (the little grid) in the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Select Your Column: Find and click on the column that contains your URLs. This will highlight the entire column.
3. Change Data Category: With the column selected, the Column tools tab will appear in the top ribbon. In the Properties group, click the dropdown for Data category and select Web URL.

This step tells Power BI to treat any text in this column as a clickable hyperlink when you add it to a visual.

Step 2: Add the Links to Your Table

1. Return to the Report View: Click the report icon in the top-left navigation bar.
2. Create a Table or Matrix: Add a table or matrix visual to your canvas if you don't have one already.
3. Add Your Fields: Drag the fields you want to display into the Columns or Values well. For example, drag "Product Name" and "Sales Amount."
4. Add the URL Field: Now, drag your newly categorized URL column into the table. You'll see the full URLs appear, already formatted as clickable links.

Pro Tip: Clean Up Your Table with Link Icons

Showing the full URL can make a table look long and messy. A much cleaner approach is to display a simple link icon instead. Users can click the icon to open the link, keeping your table tidy.

1. Select your table or matrix visual.
2. In the Visualizations pane on the right, click the paintbrush icon to open the Format visual options.
3. Expand the Specific column section.
4. Use the dropdown menu to select the column containing your URLs.
5. Scroll down to find the URL icon option and toggle it to On.

Instantly, the long text URLs in that column will be replaced by a clean, universal link icon. This makes your report look more professional and is much easier for your team to read.

Method 3: Navigating Within Your Report Using Bookmarks & Buttons

Sometimes the most important links are the ones that keep users inside your report. Maybe you have a main dashboard with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and want buttons that navigate to more detailed pages for "Marketing," "Sales," and "Operations." This is done using a combination of Buttons and Bookmarks.

Step 1: Create Your Bookmarks

A bookmark in Power BI saves the current state of a report page, including any filters or slicers you have applied.

1. Navigate to the page you want to link to. Set it up exactly how you want it to appear when a user clicks the button. For example, go to your "Sales Deep Dive" page.
2. Go to the View tab on the top ribbon and click on Bookmarks to open the Bookmarks pane.
3. Click the Add button. A new bookmark will appear with a generic name like "Bookmark 1."
4. Double-click the name and rename it to something descriptive, like "Jump to Sales Page."
5. Repeat this process for every page or view you want to link to.

Step 2: Link a Button to a Bookmark

Now that you have your destination saved as a bookmark, you can create a button to trigger it.

1. Go to the page where you want your navigation button to live (e.g., your main Summary dashboard).
2. Go to the Insert tab and click Buttons. Choose a blank button or one with an icon (like a right arrow).
3. Position the button where you want it on your report canvas.
4. Select the button, and in the Format pane, find the Action section and toggle it On.
5. Under Type, select Bookmark from the dropdown.
6. In the Bookmark field that appears, select the bookmark you just created ("Jump to Sales Page").
7. (Optional) Expand the Style section and add text to your button, like "View Sales Details," so users know what it does.

Now, when you publish your report (or Ctrl+click in Desktop mode), clicking this button will instantly take the user to the sales page, just as you configured it. You can build out an entire navigation system this way, making large reports much easier to manage.

Final Thoughts

Adding links to your reports is a simple way to elevate them from static displays of data into powerful, interactive tools. Whether you're connecting to external websites with a URL column or building a slick internal navigation system with bookmarks, these techniques make your reports significantly more insightful and user-friendly.

Of course, building dashboards in tools like Power BI first requires getting all your data in one place, cleaning it up, and manually setting up every chart and connection. If you're looking for a faster way, we built Graphed to do the heavy lifting for you. You can connect your marketing and sales platforms (like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce) once, and then simply ask for what you need in plain English. Graphed automatically generates live, interactive dashboards, saving you the time you'd otherwise spend configuring visuals and formatting link actions.