Notes from the workshop.
How we build Power BI visuals, what we learn from the marketplace, and how to get more out of the ones you already use.
Automatic headlines in Power BI: writing the monthly review from the data, honestly
How to write data-driven headlines in Power BI with DAX: the previous month, a change that respects blanks and zero bases, a like-for-like total, a leader that admits a tie, and the rules that keep the copy true.
Candlestick chart in Power BI: OHLC measures, the trading-day axis and indicators
How to shape open-high-low-close data for a Power BI candlestick chart, write OHLC measures that stay right for weeks and months, handle weekends, check bad bars and compute moving averages on trading days.
Combo charts in Power BI: columns, a line, two axes and the plan
Revenue as columns, margin as a line, the plan against both: when a second axis helps, how to keep it honest with zero alignment, the DAX for actual, plan and last year, and the pitfalls of actual vs plan by month.
Line chart with a legend and a secondary axis in Power BI: the options, the DAX and when two axes mislead
Revenue and margin per region on one line chart sounds simple. How to build it with DAX, field parameters or two aligned charts, how to compute the margin correctly, and how to keep a second axis from telling a story the data does not.
P&L statement in Power BI: signs, statement order, Gross profit and a total that adds up
How to prepare a P&L for Power BI so costs subtract, Revenue stays on top, Gross profit appears between the sections and the total matches the lines, and where a matrix stops helping.
Process funnel in Power BI: conversion and time between stages in one view
How to prepare stage counts and stage-to-stage times for a process in Power BI, why open cases and averages mislead, and how to show the slow leg and the late leg next to the drop-off.
Ranking a sales team in Power BI: percentile ranks, missing values and one score from several stats
How to rank reps on revenue, win rate, new clients and days to close at once: a percentile measure that shares ties, why a blank is not a zero, lower-is-better stats, a weighted score, and when a tier means nothing.
Sankey diagram in Power BI: pairs or a flat table, loops, blanks and colours that stay put
How to prepare data for a Sankey diagram in Power BI: pairs versus a flat table of stages, what happens to blank stages, loops, zeros and negative values, and why node colours should follow the name, not the row order.
Sparklines in a Power BI table: one trend per row, one honest scale
How to put a small trend line next to every plant, product or region in Power BI: the data shape, the change column, shared versus independent scales, missing periods and what to do when the list gets long.
Stacked, 100 % or streamgraph: choosing an area chart in Power BI
Three area layouts answer three different questions. Which one to use, the data shape and DAX behind them, and the six ways a stacked area chart quietly misleads.
Forecasting a time series in Power BI: preparing the data, choosing the season and reading the prediction intervals
A forecast is only as good as the series you feed it. How to cut the unfinished month, decide what a blank month means, get the season right, read 80 and 95 % prediction intervals and check the forecast against months it has not seen.
Timeline chart in Power BI: one events table, ongoing ranges, milestone columns and the label problem
How to shape the data for a timeline of events in Power BI: one table for points and ranges, ranges that have not ended, milestone columns, historic years, and why labels are the hard part.
Word cloud in Power BI from survey comments: duplicates, stop words, word forms and what to count
How to turn a column of survey comments into a word cloud in Power BI that counts correctly: why identical answers vanish, how to split and count words in Power Query, which stop words to drop, and why 'comments mentioning' beats raw word counts.
Actual vs target in Power BI: bullet chart or gauge, bands, and the DAX behind them
Why a gauge struggles with more than one KPI, how a bullet chart reads, the YTD, full-year and run-rate measures it needs, and the five places actual vs target quietly goes wrong.
Calendar heatmap in Power BI: the date table, missing days, week start and the colour scale
How to build a day-by-day calendar heatmap in Power BI, why a missing day is not a zero, how weeks break at the year boundary, and which colour scale survives one extreme day.
Days since last incident in Power BI: the DAX recipe, and why the card goes stale
The DATEDIFF and TODAY() pattern for a days-since counter, why it freezes between refreshes and rolls over at UTC midnight in the Service, the DAX that fixes the time zone, and when a ticking visual is the better fix.
Head-to-head comparisons in Power BI: the data shape, the DAX and a board you can read across the room
Team vs team, region vs region, this year vs last: which table shape to start from, the lead and tie measures, why blanks and ratios break the result, and how to make the answer readable on a wall screen.
KPI status thresholds in Power BI: good, warning, bad, and which way is up
How to define on target, within tolerance and below target in DAX, handle lower-is-better and zero targets, keep forecast apart from actual, and avoid the traffic-light pitfalls that make a scorecard lie.
Set overlap in Power BI: the data shape, why Venn breaks after three sets, and how to read an UpSet plot
Multi-select survey answers and product holdings in Power BI: the table shape that keeps the base honest, the DAX for overlaps, why circles stop working at four sets, and how to read the UpSet plot that replaces them.
Before and after in Power BI: slope chart or dumbbell, and how to shape the data
When a slope chart beats a dumbbell, the two data shapes that feed them, the DAX for start, end, % change and rank move, and how to read rank changes without fooling yourself.
Tornado chart in Power BI: the sensitivity analysis recipe, and how to read it
The low / base / high data shape, the DAX that turns it into a tornado on a native bar chart, sorting by swing, and why a butterfly chart is not a sensitivity analysis.
Your NPS went up by 3. Is that real?
The margin of error on a Net Promoter Score, why its variance is not what a proportion calculator says, how to test a wave-over-wave change, and what to do with the answer in Power BI.
The Pareto chart DAX recipe for Power BI, and the three ways it breaks
The RANKX cumulative-percentage pattern, why it fails on ties, slicers and sort order, and what a correct Pareto needs beyond the line.
D7, D30 and rolling retention: three definitions that give three numbers
Classic, rolling and sequential retention computed on the same ten users, the denominator each pairs with, and why a chart must name its definition.
Critical path in Power BI without Microsoft Project
What the critical path is, why DAX cannot compute it, why Power Query and Python versions go stale, and what changes when the visual computes it.
Gantt chart in Power BI: native workarounds versus custom visuals
The stacked-bar trick, the matrix heat-grid and the free Gantt visuals, what each can and cannot do, and what a project-management Gantt needs.
Why your Power BI radar chart changes shape every time you click
Autoscaling under slicers, pinned axis bounds, stable axis order, normalization for mixed units, and when a radar is the wrong chart.
Cohort retention in Power BI: the DAX recipe, and where it breaks
The five-part DAX recipe for a retention triangle written out in full, and the three places it quietly produces wrong numbers.
From question to chart: Conversational analytics in Power BI
Ask in plain English and get a chart in seconds - inside Power BI.