How to Scroll Tooltip in Power BI

Don't you hate it when you design a helpful Power BI tooltip, only to find that it cuts off half the data you need to show? It's a common frustration that can turn a great report into a confusing one. This tutorial will walk you through, step-by-step, how to create scrollable tooltips in Power BI so you can display detailed information without overwhelming your main dashboard view.

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Why Standard Tooltips Fall Short

By default, Power BI tooltips are fantastic for showing quick, contextual information when you hover over a data point. You might use one to display the exact sales number for a bar on a chart or the top 3 referring domains for a specific month. They provide a deeper layer of data without cluttering your core visuals.

The problem arises as soon as you need to display more than a handful of data points. For example, imagine hovering over a sales region on a map and wanting to see a list of every salesperson in that region and their individual sales. If there are 30 salespeople, Power BI's default tooltip will run out of space and simply truncate the list. The dreaded "..." appears, and your user is left with an incomplete picture. This is where creating a custom, scrollable report page tooltip becomes a game-changer.

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How to Create a Scrollable Tooltip in Power BI: A Step-by-Step Guide

The secret to creating a scrollable tooltip isn't in some hidden setting on the tooltip itself. Instead, we're going to create a brand new, dedicated report page, turn that page into a tooltip, and place a scrollable visual (like a table or matrix) onto it.

Let's walk through the process with a practical example: we have a bar chart showing total sales by product category, and we want to hover over a category to see a detailed, scrollable list of every individual product sold within that category.

Step 1: Create a New "Tooltip" Report Page

First, you need a dedicated page that will function as your tooltip canvas.

• In Power BI Desktop, look at the bottom of your screen where your report tabs are located.
• Click the plus sign (+) to add a new page.
• It's good practice to rename this page immediately so you can identify it later. Right-click on the new page tab (e.g., "Page 1") and select Rename. Call it something descriptive, like "Product Details Tooltip."

Step 2: Configure the Page as a Tooltip

This is the most critical part of setting up the page. You need to tell Power BI that this page isn't a standard report page, but a special tooltip.

1. Make sure you have the new "Product Details Tooltip" page selected, and don't click on any visuals (click on the blank canvas area instead).
2. Go to the Visualizations pane on the right-hand side.
3. Click on the Format your report page icon (it looks like a paintbrush on a piece of paper).
4. Expand the Page information section.
5. Toggle the Allow use as tooltip switch to On. You'll immediately notice the page on your canvas shrink. This is correct!

You now have a tooltip page, but we should optimize its size for the best user experience.

1. In the same right-hand pane, expand the Canvas settings section.
2. Under Type, the dropdown will likely default to "Tooltip." This is a good starting point, but you can also choose "Custom."
3. If you select Custom, you can define the exact pixel height and width. This gives you more control over the space your tooltip occupies on the screen. For a scrollable tooltip with a long list, you might want to make it taller than the default. For our example, let's set a custom size of 400 pixels for Height and 300 pixels for Width. Play around with these dimensions to see what works best for your data.

Your canvas is now a perfectly sized, dedicated tooltip page ready for its content.

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Step 3: Add a Scrollable Visual to Your Tooltip Page

Now we add the visual that will contain all of our detailed data. The best visuals for scrolling are the Table or Matrix visuals.

1. With your tooltip page still selected, go to the Visualizations pane and select the Table visual.
2. A blank table visual will appear on your small tooltip canvas. Resize it to fill most of the canvas, leaving a small margin around the edges for good design.
3. From your Data pane, drag the fields you want to show in the detailed breakdown into the "Columns" well of the table visual. For our example, we'll drag Product Name and Total Sales into the table.

As soon as you add the data, you'll probably see the same problem: the list is too long and gets cut off. But now, since it is a table visual on its own page, we can enable its native scrolling functionality.

Step 4: Enable and Test the Scrollbar

By default, table visuals in Power BI will automatically add a vertical scrollbar when the content exceeds the visual's height. If you don't see one, you can ensure it's enabled.

1. Select the table visual on your tooltip page.
2. Go to the Format your visual section in the Visualizations pane (the paintbrush icon).
3. You can search for "scrollbar" in the search bar or navigate to the settings. Generally, you don't need to change anything here as it's enabled by default.
4. The most important thing to see is that a faint gray scrollbar appears on the right side of your table. You can drag it up and down within the page view to confirm it works.

Congratulations, you've built a scrollable visual! Now for the final step: connecting it to your main report.

Step 5: Connect Your Custom Tooltip to the Main Visual

Let's go back to your main report page - the one with the bar chart showing sales by category.

1. Navigate back to your main report page.
2. Click on the bar chart visual to select it.
3. Go to the Format your visual section of the Visualizations pane.
4. Expand the General tab.
5. Find and expand the Tooltips section.
6. Change the Type from "Default" to Report page.
7. A new dropdown called Page will appear. Click it and select the name of the tooltip page you created: "Product Details Tooltip".

And that's it! Now, go back to your report. When you hover your mouse over one of the bars in your bar chart (e.g., the "Accessories" category), your custom tooltip will appear. You'll see the list of product names and their sales, and you can now scroll through the entire list without it ever getting cut off. The tooltip correctly filters to only show products within the category you are hovering over.

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Best Practices for Effective Scrollable Tooltips

Just because you can create a scrollable tooltip doesn't always mean you should cram it full of information. Here are a few tips to keep them user-friendly and effective.

• Keep it Focused: Your tooltip should provide direct, relevant detail for the data point being hovered over. Avoid adding unrelated information or too many different visuals that clutter the pop-up. The goal is clarity, not a mini-dashboard.
• Mind the Size: Be considerate of your report's real estate. A massive tooltip that covers half the screen can be just as disruptive as one that gets cut off. Test your custom dimensions to find a balance between showing enough data and not obstructing the main visuals.
• Optimize for Performance: Using a report page as a tooltip requires Power BI to render an entire page on the fly. If your tooltip page contains complex visuals, DAX measures, or a massive amount of data, it can cause a slight delay when hovering. For tables and matrices, keep the number of columns to a minimum to ensure it loads quickly. Stick to exactly what is needed.
• Consistent Formatting: Ensure the look and feel (colors, fonts, etc.) of your tooltip page align with the overall design of your main report. A cohesive design makes for a more professional and intuitive user experience.

Final Thoughts

Creating a scrollable tooltip in Power BI by using a dedicated report page is a powerful technique for delivering detailed insights without cluttering your core report. By following these steps, you can finally overcome the frustration of truncated data and give your users the full story behind the numbers.

Power BI is an incredibly powerful tool, but getting comfortable with its many settings and workarounds often requires a steep learning curve. We built Graphed because we believe getting answers from your data shouldn't be that complicated. Instead of navigating confusing menus to build visuals, you can just connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce) and use plain English to create dashboards and reports. A prompt like, "Show me my top products by sales in a bar chart for last quarter" instantly gives you a live, interactive chart, letting you focus on the insights, not the setup.