How to Display Power BI Pages

A great Power BI report doesn't just display data, it tells a story and guides the user toward uncovering insights. A critical part of that process is controlling which pages users see and how they navigate between them. This guide will walk you through the essential techniques for displaying, hiding, and managing pages in your Power BI reports, from simple visibility toggles to creating a polished, app-like user experience.

Controlling Page Visibility: The Foundation

The simplest way to control your Power BI display is by deciding which pages are visible in the final published report. Sometimes you create pages that a user shouldn't click on directly, and hiding them is the first step toward a cleaner report.

When and Why You Should Hide a Power BI Page

You might wonder why you'd create a page only to hide it. There are several strategic reasons:

• Drill-through Pages: These pages are designed to show fine-grained details for a specific data point from another page. Users are meant to access them by right-clicking a visual and selecting "Drill through," not by clicking a page tab. Hiding them keeps the main navigation uncluttered.
• Tooltips Pages: You can design a whole report page to act as a custom tooltip that appears when a user hovers over a visual. These pages should nearly always be hidden.
• Works in Progress: If you're building out a new analysis but it's not ready for everyone to see, you can simply hide the page before publishing your report.
• Calculation or Reference Pages: Some developers create hidden pages to test DAX measures or store reference information that isn't intended for the final audience.
• Guided Navigation: Hiding all pages except a "Home" or "Menu" page forces users to navigate through buttons you provide, giving you complete control over their analytical journey.

Step-by-Step Guide to Hiding (and Unhiding) a Page

Hiding a page in Power BI Desktop is incredibly straightforward. The changes you make in the Desktop application will carry over when you publish the report to the Power BI service.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Find the page tabs at the bottom of your Power BI Desktop canvas.
2. Right-click on the tab of the page you want to hide.
3. In the context menu that appears, simply click "Hide Page".

That's it! The page tab will become grayed out and slightly dimmer. When you're in the Desktop app, you can still see and edit the page. But once you publish the report to the Power BI Service, that page tab will be completely gone for the end-user.

To unhide it, simply right-click the hidden page again and select "Unhide Page."

Building an Interactive Experience with Custom Navigation

Hiding pages is just the beginning. The real magic happens when you build your own navigation system inside the report. This turns a simple collection of charts into a cohesive application that feels intuitive and professional. Buttons are the primary tool for this job.

Using Buttons for Page Navigation

Buttons allow you to create clean, simple links that direct users to other pages - including your hidden ones. This is the cornerstone of creating a "landing page" or custom menu for your report.

How to Create a Navigation Button:

1. In Power BI Desktop, navigate to the "Insert" tab on the top ribbon.
2. Click on the "Buttons" dropdown. You can choose a pre-designed icon like "Left arrow" for a 'Back' button, or select "Blank" for full creative control.
3. A button shape will appear on your canvas. Position and resize it as needed.
4. With the new button selected, the "Format" pane will appear on the right side of the screen.
5. Find the "Action" section and toggle it to "On."
6. Expand the Action section. In the "Type" dropdown menu, select "Page navigation."
7. A new "Destination" option will appear. In this dropdown, select the page you want this button to link to. This list includes both your visible and hidden pages, which is the key to creating guided navigation to your drill-through reports!
8. To give your button a label, go to an option in the Format pane for your button. Usually, it comes under 'Style' -> 'Text' (the specific options under style depend on other format settings). There will be an option or section called "Text" or "Button Text" or an equivalent. Turn that On and type in the text you'd like your user to see, for instance, 'View Sales Details'.

You can now customize the button's color, text, hover state, and more in the Format pane to match the design of your report. Repeat this process to build out a full navigation menu or create simple links between summary pages and detailed ones.

Save Time with the Automatic Page Navigator

If you just need a straightforward navigation bar for all your visible pages and don't want to create and format a dozen individual buttons, Power BI has a fantastic time-saving feature: the Page Navigator.

How to Use the Page Navigator:

1. Go to the "Insert" tab.
2. Click on "Buttons" > "Navigator" > "Page Navigator."
3. Power BI will instantly create a perfectly aligned group of buttons, one for each visible page in your report. It also has the intelligence to automatically highlight the button for the page the user is currently on.

You can format this entire navigator block at once from the Format pane. A useful setting is the checkbox called "Show hidden pages." If you want to use the Navigator for a custom navigation scheme (e.g., going from Section 'A' pages to Section 'B' pages and back), you may want to show one or two hidden pages in the Navigator visual. Using this setting, you may add any hidden pages you had previously if that suits a specific purpose for you.

Bookmarks for Customized Page Views

Sometimes you don't need to send the user to an entirely different page, you just want to change their view of the current page. That's where bookmarks come in. A bookmark captures the complete state of a report page, including filters, slicers, the visibility of certain visuals, and more.

Combining Bookmarks and Buttons to Toggle Views

Let's imagine you have a single sales chart and you want to give the user two buttons: one to "Show Top 10 Products" and another to "Show Bottom 10 Products." Instead of making two separate pages, you can do this dynamically on one page with bookmarks.

How to Create a View-Swapping Bookmark:

1. First, set up your page for the initial view. For example, select the slicers and apply the filters needed to show the "Top 10 Products" in your visual.
2. Go to the "View" tab in the ribbon and click the "Bookmarks" button to open the Bookmarks pane on the right.
3. Click "Add." A new bookmark will appear. Double-click it and rename it to something descriptive, like "VW_Top_10_Products."
4. Now, re-configure your page for the second view. For example, change the filters to show the "Bottom 10 Products."
5. Go back to the Bookmarks pane and click "Add" again. Rename this new bookmark to "VW_Bottom_10_Products."
6. Now, add two buttons to your canvas (let's say you're using blank buttons). Insert button A to "See top 10 products" and insert button B to "See bottom 10 selling products".
7. To link view switcher button A to "see top selling products," with button A selected, go to the Format pane and enable the "Action" setting. For "Type," this time select "Bookmark."
8. For the "Bookmark" destination, select the "VW_Top_10_Products" bookmark you created earlier.
9. Repeat this for the "see bottom 10 products" button as well, linking it to your "VW_Bottom_10_Products" bookmark.

Now, when you publish the report, users can click these buttons to toggle the filters on an entire page with a single click, providing an incredibly interactive and dynamic experience without ever leaving the page.

Final Thoughts

Effectively managing how users view and interact with your report pages is what separates functional dashboards from fabulous ones. By mastering these techniques for hiding pages and building custom navigation with buttons and bookmarks, you can create a refined, intuitive experience that guides your users directly to the insights they need to make better decisions.

While mastering Power BI grants you a phenomenal level of control, the learning curve can be steep, especially when you just need a quick answer. For business users and teams who need insights without the technical overhead, we've designed Graphed to work like a data analyst you can talk to. Instead of building buttons and formatting menus, you can simply ask, "Show me my campaign ROI from Facebook vs. Google over the last 90 days," and get a live, interactive dashboard generated for you in seconds. It allows you to skip straight to the answer, letting AI handle the report creation process for you.