As our ‘5 tips for Power BI beginners’ article was popular with so many of you, we wanted to build on this with an article focused on intermediate users. Power BI is easy to pick up and learn if you have good experience with Excel, but it comes in waves. Getting good enough to make yourself a report might not leave you confident enough to build dashboards and reports for your whole department. The key to success is to continue to build on your skills. We highlight some of our top tips to help you get started.

  1. Understand the data model – The most important thing about Power BI reporting is data. You need to know how to get it, make sure it’s correct and model it to drive your reports. Many Power BI users focus just on report building but the data model is make or break for most reports. Understand how to use DAX measures and calculated columns.
  2. Tell a story with your data. The best reports tell a story with the data. Use your visualizations and text to explain the trends and relationships in your data. Never lose sight over what the report is trying to do, what decisions are you trying to support, what will your users value most.
  3. Get feedback from others. Once you have created a report, share it with others and get their feedback. This feedback can help you identify areas where your report can be improved.
  4. Use filters and slicers to segment your data. Filters and slicers allow you to segment your data and focus on the most important information. For example, you could use a filter to focus on sales from a specific region or a slicer to focus on sales from a specific product category.
  5. Use tooltips and drillthroughs to provide additional information. Tooltips and drillthroughs can provide additional information about your data points. Tooltips appear when you hover over a data point, while drillthroughs take you to another page with more detailed information.

These 5 tips will help you take your Power BI skills to the next level and provide a much better experience to your users. To learn more about Power BI download our Power BI guide or contact us today.