Power BI Edit Interactions to Optimize Your Charts

Interpreting data in Power BI is such a daunting task. To get the most out of this tedious process, you should have a good grasp of Power BI edit interactions. The Power BI edit interactions help you to edit your interactions for a more impactful and cohesive visual representation.

This guide shows you how to effectively edit interactions in Power BI. You’ll also discover types of Power BI visual interaction, and common mistakes to avoid.

Table of Contents:

1. What are Interactions in Power BI?
2. Why are Power BI Interactions Important?
3. How to Enable Visual Interaction Control?
4. How Many Types of Power BI Visual Interaction?
5. How to Edit Interaction in Power BI?
6. How to Create a Visualization in Power BI?
7. What are the Tips for Editing Power BI Visual Interaction?
8. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Editing Power BI Interactions
9. Wrap Up

First…

What are Interactions in Power BI?

Definition: Reports always come with visual elements and these visual elements can be manipulated and connected using interactions in Power BI. Data manipulation could be in the form of highlighting, filtering, and interacting with elements in the data. Interactions in Power BI help in analyzing data and gaining useful insights. It enhances the user experience and offers dynamic ways of exploring the data.

Why are Power BI Interactions Important?

Interactions in Power BI help users to analyze and explore their data. With interactions, users can easily establish relationships between multiple visual elements like tables and charts. This will, in turn, lead to a more robust understanding of the data.

Furthermore, interactions improve the overall user experience. To get the most out of your Power BI edit interactions, you’ll have to:

• Ascertain that there are proper connections between the visual elements.
• Take advantage of the highlighting and cross-filtering features.
• Provide clear and succinct instructions and these instructions should serve as a guideline on how to interact with your report.

How to Enable Visual Interaction Control?

Having access to edit a report is a prerequisite to enabling visual interaction control. Enabling the visual interaction control helps you customize how the highlight and filter features work on your report. Here are easy steps to help you get started.

1. Make the visualization active by selecting it.
2. Showcase the Visual Interactions options.
   • From the Power BI Desktop menu, choose Format > Edit interactions.

3. Highlight and filter icons are added by Power BI to other visualizations on your report page.

How Many Types of Power BI Visual Interaction?

When it comes to Power BI visual interactions, there are options for the designer to either turn the visual interactions on or off. The designer can also manipulate the visual using visual interactions like cross-highlighting, cross-filtering, or drilling behavior.

Cross-filter and cross-highlight

Cross-filtering and cross-highlighting show you how a value in one data contributes to the other. The report pages below show a pictorial representation of cross-filtering and cross-highlighting. The values found in the Total Category Volume by Segment are Convenience and Moderation.

Moderation is selected in the image below.

Since Moderation is the selected value on a bar chart, you’ll notice:

• Data that doesn’t apply to it is removed through cross-filtering. Data points displayed on the line chart are those of the Moderation segment. In other words, if you select the Moderation segment in the bar chart, the line chart gets cross-filtered.
• Original data points that apply to the Moderation segment are retained, while that portion that doesn’t apply to it is dimed through cross-highlighting. When the Moderation segment is selected in the bar chart, it cross-highlights the column chart. That is, data that corresponds to the convenience segment is dimed in the column chart, while the data that corresponds to the Moderation segment is highlighted.

How to Edit Interaction in Power BI?

Here are steps to help you during the Power BI edit interactions.

• Open Report: Open the Power BI report in the Power BI Desktop.
• Select Visual: Choose your preferred visual.
• Open Context Menu: To open your context menu, right-click on the visual.
• Edit Interactions: From the menu, select “Edit interaction.”
• Adjust Interaction: There are lots of icons on the report. Click on your preferred icon to interact with it.
• Choose Interaction Type: Choose any of the options like “Highlight,” “Filter,” or “None.”
• Apply Changes: To edit interactions on any visual, repeat the steps above.
• Confirm: Click the “OK” button to apply your changes.
• Test Interactions: To test interactions, make a selection in one visual and observe the changes that are made in other visuals.

How to Create a Visualization in Power BI?

Stage 1: Logging in to Power BI

• Log in to Power BI.
• Enter your email address and click the “Submit” button.

• You are redirected to your Microsoft account.
• Enter your password and click “Sign in“.

• You can choose whether to stay signed in.

• Once done, the Power BI home screen will open.

Stage 2: Creating a Data Set and Selecting the Data Set to Use in Your Chart

• Go to the left-side menu and click the “Create” button.
• Select “Paste or manually enter data“.

• We’ll use the sample data below for this example.

Application Channels	Initial Screening	Conduct Interviews	Employee Onboarding	Total Candidates
Social Media	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	32
Social Media	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	400
Social Media	Short Listed	Knocked Out		800
Social Media	Knocked Out			1100
Company Career Page	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	20
Company Career Page	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	250
Company Career Page	Short Listed	Knocked Out		500
Company Career Page	Knocked Out			900
Events	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	5
Events	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	100
Events	Short Listed	Knocked Out		200
Events	Knocked Out			350
Paper Media	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	3
Paper Media	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	80
Paper Media	Short Listed	Knocked Out		135
Paper Media	Knocked Out			700
Employee Referrals	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	10
Employee Referrals	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	70
Employee Referrals	Short Listed	Knocked Out		80
Employee Referrals	Knocked Out			110
Direct	Short Listed	Final Interview	Hired	25
Direct	Short Listed	Final Interview	Not Hired	150
Direct	Short Listed	Knocked Out		425
Direct	Knocked Out			600

• Paste the data table into a “Power Query” window. After that, choose “Create a dataset only.”

• Click on “Data Hub” to get Power BI to populate your data set list.

• From the dropdown menu, click on “Create report.”

• At this point, you’ll have to add the Power BI Sankey Diagram Extension by ChartExpo. Here’s how to do that:
  • To create the Sankey Diagram, you’ll have to use the Power BI visual or add-in from the AppSource.
  • On the right side of your Power BI dashboard, click on the visualizations panel.
  • Click on the ellipsis symbol (…) to import the Power BI Sankey Diagram extension by ChartExpo.
  • From the menu displayed on your screen, choose “Get more visuals.”

• Next, you’ll have to enter “ChartExpo” in the search box. After that, you’ll see the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” option click on it.

• Click on the “Add” button on your screen.

• The “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” icon will be added to the visualization panel.

• Follow the steps below to draw a Sankey Diagram with ChartExpo’s Power BI extension.
  • From the visualization panel, choose “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo.”

• Here’s where to select the fields in your Sankey chart.

• Here’s the sequence you must follow when selecting the fields:
  • Application Channels
  • Initial Screening
  • Conduct Interviews
  • Employee Onboarding
  • Total Candidates.
• At this point, you’ll be required to input your email address or ChartExpo license key.

• After inputting the key, a chart will be displayed on your screen. Provide a top header text for your chart and that can be done within the space under the General section.

• Click on visual and set your preferred numbers. Also, enable the options as shown in the image below.

• The image below shows how to change the “Node Font Style.”

• Here’s how to change the “Level Font Style.”

• Here’s how to check the Level Labels.

• The image below shows how to change the Node’s color.

• From the image below, you’ll see how to change “Level 1 Color.” The same process can be followed to change the Node color of other levels.

• Here’s the final look at the HR Dashboard in Power BI.

Insights

Here are some insights you’ll get from the Power BI with ChartExpo.

• The number of candidates on the social media and company career page are 1100 and 900 respectively. And they’re the two application channels with the highest number of candidates
• Direct applications and employee referrals have 600 and 110 candidates respectively
• Social media has the highest number of shortlisted candidates
• Events and Paper Media have a lower number of shortlisted candidates.

What are the Tips for Editing Power BI Visual Interaction?

Here are some tips to help you through your Power BI edit interactions.

1. Plan Your Interactions: Plan how your visuals will interact with each other. This will help ascertain an intuitive and coherent user experience.
2. Start Simple: Always start with basic interactions. You can begin with one or two visuals and slowly add more complex interactions.
3. Consider User Flow: Your interactions should enhance the user’s ability to enhance and analyze the data.
4. Test Interactions: Your interactions should be tested regularly. This will help you ascertain that they work, and possibly make the adjustments (if needed).
5. Use Consistent Design: Your visual designs should be consistent across all reports. This improves the overall user experience.
6. Document Interactions: Interactions used in the Power BI report should be documented and that includes the rationale behind these interactions. Documentation helps facilitate collaboration during future projects.
7. Review Performance: Keep a close eye on your interactions, and keep optimizing them to eliminate negative impacts on the overall performance.
8. Educate Users: Provide training materials, tooltips, and interactive tutorials to help users learn how to utilize and interpret interactions.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Editing Power BI Interactions

Here are mistakes to avoid during Power BI edit interactions.

1. Overcomplicating Interactions: Creating complex interactions will most likely confuse your users and complicate things. Always avoid including unnecessary interactions in your report.
2. Negligence in Testing Interactions: Always test interactions in the report. If not, you’ll encounter errors.
3. Ignoring User Feedback: User feedback on interactions is the backbone of improving the overall user experience. Always ask for feedback, and integrate their response into your interactions.
4. Lack of Documentation: Documenting interactions helps boost collaboration. When there’s a failure to document interactions, it becomes increasingly difficult to collaborate with others. It also hinders future updates.
5. Lack of User Guidance: Interactive tutorials, instructional text, and tooltips should be provided. Failure to do this makes it difficult to utilize and interpret interactions.

FAQs

How Do I Delete Interactions in Power BI?

Deleting interactions in Power BI is quite simple. Right-click on your visual, and choose “Edit interactions.” Next, select the icon that’s next to the visual the interaction will be removed from. After that, select “None.”

How Do Edit Interactions Work?

Power BI edit interactions help users determine how visuals interact with one another in the report. It specifies the visual that highlights, filters, or has no interaction with the other visual.

What Does Power BI Edit Interactions Mean?

Edit interactions in Power BI enable users to determine how visuals within a report interact with one another. It determines if a visual highlights, filters, or records no interaction with the other visual in the report.

Wrap Up

Power BI edit interactions show how users’ actions affect how visuals within a report interact with each other. It’s a significant piece of data exploration and it enables users to highlight (or filter) multiple visuals within a report. This will, in turn, help users draw better insights and make deeper data analysis.

To create a compelling dashboard in Power BI, you should consider using visualizations like the Sankey chart.

When it comes to Power BI interactions, less is more, and avoid complicating interactions. Your interactions should be simple, and easy for the users to interpret. Start with the basic interactions before adding some complexity to the mix.

Furthermore, test interactions across multiple scenarios to ascertain that they’re working as intended.

Now you know how Power BI edit interaction works, what things will you look out for when creating visualization in Power BI with ChartExpo?