Mastering Power BI Report Builder: A Quick Guide

Picture this: you’re in a meeting, presenting your latest findings to the bigwigs in the company. You’re armed with pages and pages of graphs and charts. However, they fall asleep before you can get to the good stuff.

That’s where the Power BI Report Builder comes into play.

You can easily create interactive reports that make your data sing and dance like never before. Whether you are a seasoned data analyst or a beginner, Power BI Report Builder has got you covered.

With its user-friendly interface and powerful tools, you can create customized reports tailored to your needs.

Why settle for ordinary reports when you can create something extraordinary?

Table of Content:

1. What is Power BI Report Builder?
2. Getting Familiar With Power BI Paginated Report Builder
3. Install Microsoft Power BI Report Builder
4. Connect to a Data Source from Your Workspace
5. Elements of Power BI Report Design
6. Power BI Report Building Examples
7. Use Power BI Builder For Reporting
8. Power BI Report Builder Limitations
9. Advantages of Power BI Report Builder
10. Power BI Report Builder: FAQs
11. Wrap Up

What is Power BI Report Builder?

Definition: A Power BI report is a graphical representation of data generated with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI lets you establish connections with diverse data sources for data collection and transformation. Subsequently, you can leverage Power BI to create interactive reports and present data.

You can combine multiple visual elements in a Power BI report to convey hidden insights and trends. You can customize and arrange these visualizations to be appealing and meaningful.

By utilizing cross-filter direction in Power BI, you can enhance the relationships between visuals, ensuring that changes in one visualization are reflected in others. Additionally, you can apply various filters, slicers, and interactive features to allow data exploration and drill-down capabilities.

Getting Familiar With Power BI Paginated Report Builder

Power BI Paginated Report Builder is a tool that allows you to create detailed, pixel-perfect reports for your business needs. With its intuitive interface, you can easily design and customize reports with various data visualizations and formatting options. It supports direct connections to data sources, enabling efficient handling of large datasets.

With features like parameters and expressions, you can create dynamic and interactive reports to drive better decision-making. Mastering Power BI Paginated Report Builder empowers you to produce professional-grade reports that deliver actionable insights for your organization’s success.

When comparing Looker Studio vs Power BI, both platforms offer unique strengths in data visualization and reporting, making it crucial to understand which tool best aligns with your business needs.

Use Power BI Builder For Reporting

Let’s break down the process into 5 digestible chunks. Sankey Diagram is a mindblowing tool for building reports 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 Sankey Chart

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

• We’ll use the following cash flow data for this example.

Earnings Source	Revenue	Expenses & Profit	Departments	Categories	Amount
Providing services	Revenue	Expenses	Managerial	Training Sessions	10,000
Providing services	Revenue	Expenses	Managerial	Office rental	16,000
Providing services	Revenue	Expenses	Managerial	Wages	9,400
Providing services	Revenue	Expenses	Commercial	Wages	11,300
Sales of products	Revenue	Expenses	Commercial	Travel allowance	10,000
Sales of products	Revenue	Expenses	Commercial	Advertising	12,000
Sales of products	Revenue	Expenses	Production	Material Payment	25,000
Sales of products	Revenue	Expenses	Production	Loan Payment	8,500
Sales of products	Revenue	Expenses	Production	Wages	19,500
Loans	Revenue	Gross Profit		Taxes	11,000
Loans	Revenue	Gross Profit		Net Profit	13,000

• Paste the above data table in the Power Query Window.
• Select the “Create a dataset only” option.

• On the left-side menu, click “Data Hub“.
• Power BI populates the data set list. (If you have not created a data set, refer to the Error! Reference source not found section).

• Choose a data set for the Sankey chart.
• PBI populates the screen as shown below:

• Click on the “Create a report” dropdown.
• Select “Start from scratch“.

• A Report Canvas screen appears as below:

Stage 3: Adding the Power BI Sankey Diagram Extension by ChartExpo

• Creating the Sankey Diagram requires us to use an add-in or Power BI visual from AppSource.
• Navigate to the right side of the Power BI dashboard.
• Open the Power BI Visualizations panel.
• Click the ellipsis symbol (…) as highlighted in the diagram below. This will import the Power BI Sankey Diagram extension by ChartExpo.

• The following menu opens:
• Select the “Get more visuals” option.

• The following window opens.
• Enter “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” in the highlighted search box.
• You should see the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo”, as shown in the image below.

• Click the highlighted “Add” button.

• Power BI will add the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” in the visualization panel.

Stage 4: Drawing a Sankey Diagram with ChartExpo’s Power BI extension

• Select the “Sankey Diagram for Power BI by ChartExpo” icon in the visualization panel.
• The following window opens in the report section of your dashboard:

• You can resize the visual as needed.
• Navigate to the right side of your Power BI dashboard.
• You should see “Fields” next to “Visualizations“.

• You’ll select the fields to use in your Sankey chart here.
• The ChartExpo visual needs to be selected, though. Select the field in the following sequence:

• • Earnings Source
  • Revenue
  • Expenses & Profit
  • Departments
  • Categories
  • Revenue

• You’ll be asked for a ChartExpo license key or email address.

Stage 5: Activate your ChartExpo Trial or Apply a Subscription Key

• Select the ChartExpo visual.
• You should see three icons below “Build Visual” in the Visualizations panel.

• Select the middle icon, “Format visual“. The visual properties will be populated as shown below.

• To begin using ChartExpo as a new user;
• Enter your email address in the textbox under the “Trial Mode” section. ChartExpo will send the License key to this email upon subscribing to the add-in.
• Ensure you provide an accurate and up-to-date email address.
• Toggle “Enable Trial” to activate your 7-day trial.

• You should receive a welcome email from ChartExpo.
• If you do not find the email in your inbox, kindly check your spam folder.
• The Sankey Diagram you create under the 7-day trial contains the ChartExpo watermark.

• If you have obtained a license key:
  • Enter your license key in the “ChartExpo License Key” textbox in the “License Settings” section (see below).
  • Slide the toggle switch next to “Enable License” to “On“.

• Your Sankey Diagram will then appear without a watermark.

• Let’s add a Prefix (such as a $ sign) with the numeric values in the chart.
• Expand the “Stats” properties and include the Prefix value.

• Let’s add colors to each node. Expand the “Level Colors” properties and select the colors.

• Click on the “Pin” icon at the top of the Sankey Chart.

 

• Select the dashboard on which you want to pin the chart.
• Click on the “Pin” button.

• Your final chart will appear below.

Insights

• At the first level, the company’s primary revenue source is product sales. It accounts for 51.48% of the total revenue.
• At the second level, the company’s total revenue is $146K. Of this, $122K is spent on expenses, representing 83.5% of the total revenue. The gross profit is $24K, which represents 16.5%.
• The fourth level details expenses incurred in management, commercial, and production amounting to $35.4K, $33.3K, and $53K, respectively.
• The gross profit is divided into taxes and net profit, which amount to $11K and $13K, respectively.
• The managerial node is divided into three subsections: training sessions, wages, and office rental, which total $10K, $9.4K, and $16K, respectively.
• The commercial node is divided into travel allowance, advertising, and wages, with wages having the highest amount.

Power BI Report Builder Limitations

1. Limited Visualizations: Unlike Power BI Desktop, Report Builder primarily focuses on paginated reports, which are more traditional, table-based reports. It lacks the extensive visualization capabilities of Power BI Desktop.
2. Less Interactive Features: Paginated reports created in Report Builder are less interactive compared to Power BI reports. Users cannot drill down into data or perform interactive filtering and slicing.
3. Complex Design Interface: Report Builder’s design interface can be more complex and less intuitive than Power BI Desktop for users accustomed to drag-and-drop interfaces.
4. Limited Integration with Power BI Services: While Power BI reports can be uploaded to the Power BI service for sharing and collaboration, paginated reports created in Report Builder have limited integration options with the Power BI service.
5. Steeper Learning Curve: Creating reports in Report Builder may require a steeper learning curve, especially for users who are new to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) or traditional report authoring tools.

Advantages of Power BI Report Builder

1. Tailored Report Design: Power BI Report Builder allows users to design reports with a high degree of customization, offering precise control over layout, formatting, and visual elements. This tailored approach ensures that reports meet specific business requirements and reflect the organization’s branding and style.
2. Expanded Data Connectivity: With Power BI Report Builder, users can connect to a diverse range of data sources, including databases, cloud services, and files. This expanded connectivity enables organizations to leverage data from multiple sources, providing a comprehensive view of business insights into performance metrics and KPIs.
3. Pixel-Perfect Paginated Reports: Unlike Power BI Desktop, which focuses on interactive dashboards, Power BI Report Builder specializes in paginated reports. These reports are optimized for printing or exporting to formats like PDF or Excel, offering pixel-perfect layout design ideal for documents such as invoices, statements, or regulatory filings.
4. Enhanced Parameterization: Power BI Report Builder enables the creation of parameterized reports, including detailed Power BI Income Statement reports, allowing users to interactively filter and analyze data based on specific criteria. This enhanced parameterization enhances user interactivity and enables dynamic data exploration, empowering stakeholders to derive actionable insights from reports.

Power BI Report Builder: FAQs

What is the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Report Builder?

Power BI Desktop and Power BI Report Builder are both tools offered by Microsoft for creating reports, but they serve different purposes and have distinct features:

Power BI Desktop:

• Purpose: Power BI Desktop is primarily used for creating interactive visualizations and dashboards.
• Features: It offers a wide range of data visualization options, interactive elements, and advanced analytics capabilities. Users can connect to various data sources, transform and model data, and create dynamic reports with drill-down functionality.
• Focus: Power BI Desktop is focused on creating visually appealing and interactive reports for data analysis and exploration.

Power BI Report Builder:

• Purpose: Power BI Report Builder is designed for creating paginated reports, which are typically formatted for printing or sharing in a fixed layout.
• Features: It provides features for creating pixel-perfect, paginated reports with precise control over layout, formatting, and pagination. Users can design reports with tables, matrices, charts, and other elements, and export them to formats like PDF or Excel.
• Focus: Power BI Report Builder is focused on creating traditional, paginated reports suitable for formal presentations, compliance requirements, or printing.

How do you make a Power BI report attractive?

To make a Power BI report attractive;

• Select visually appealing and relevant visuals, such as charts and graphs.
• Use a consistent and pleasing color scheme.
• Apply formatting and styling techniques.
• Ensure a logical and intuitive layout for easy navigation and comprehension.

Wrap Up

Power BI Report Builder is a powerful tool that empowers you to create reports. It has a drag-and-drop interface and advanced formatting capabilities, enabling the creation of pixel-perfect paginated reports. These reports serve as the foundation for building interactive reports that facilitate data exploration and analysis.

You can design complex layouts, incorporating a variety of visualizations such as charts, graphs, and tables. It also allows you to add interactive elements like filters and slicers. This enables end-users to dynamically explore and slice the data based on their needs.

The ability to define drill-through actions enhances the report. This enables navigation from summary-level insights to detailed information. Additionally, bookmarks capture and save specific report views, facilitating storytelling and presenting data more contextually.

Power BI Report Builder also supports the application of customized themes, ensuring consistent branding and aesthetics across reports. Furthermore, you can publish and share reports created in Report Builder within the Power BI ecosystem. This allows for collaboration and widespread access to the reports.

Say goodbye to boring spreadsheets and hello to interactive reports that will knock your socks off. With Power BI Report Builder and ChartExpo, the sky’s the limit.