Power BI Best Practices - Part Three

Overview

In this article, we will talk about the best practices to be considered while we are working with Power BI Report development. I have divided the best practices into the following three parts. This is the last article in this series. Please visit my other articles of this series using the following URL,

• Power BI Best Practices – Part 1

• Power BI Best Practices – Part 2

During the entire series of the best practices, we have covered the following concepts.

• Best Practices for Power BI (. PBIX) file preparation (Part – 1)

• Best Practices for Power BI (. PBIX) Properties (Part – 1)

• Best Practices to use Query Editors (Part – 1)

• Best Practices for Tables and Relationship (Part – 2)

• Best Practices for creating Calculated Columns, measures, and Fields (Part – 2)

• Best Practices for Data Analytical Expressions (Part – 2)

• How to make Documentation within PBIX file (Part – 3)

• Best Practices for Power BI Report Design (Part – 3)

In this article, we will talk about the following concepts for the best practices.

• How to make Documentation within PBIX file

• Best Practices for Power BI Report Design

Let’s get started!

How to make Documentation within PBIX file

• Document the Solution File

1. This is a very good practice, we suggest to our clients.

2. We recommend having a first or last page in a report which has following information about the report.

a. Owner Name

b. Data Source Information

c. Consumed Table List

d. Important Definitions/Terms used in the data source

e. Useful Measures Information

3. Make sure before you publish the report on Production, that you hide the page.

4. This is only for a development perspective.

• Descriptions for Fields

1. Add a proper description of Fields, Calculated Columns and Measures.

• Comments in DAX Calculations and M Query

1. We also recommend using comments in every DAX expression.

2. This would be helpful for others to understand the logic or calculation.

3. We have not observed if any M query is used in the report or not.

• Rename the Query Steps

1. Steps which are added in the query editor are auto-named.

2. We recommend renaming it for a better understanding of the other users.

Best Practices for Power BI Report Design

We follow the following best practices while designing for any corporate audience.

• Company Logo

1. Use the Logo in their background.

• Data Timestamp to show, when it was refreshed last

1. We can implement it, to show the end user, when the data was refreshed last.

• Less use of scrollable Page

1. End users always feel difficulty when the report has a scrollable page.

2. We do not recommend making the page scrollable if not necessary.

3. Instead of making page scrollable, use Bookmark and Selection Pane.

4. Census dashboard doesn’t have a scrollable page which is good.

• Use Basic Reporting Filter

1. Power BI provides the following type of filters.

a. Visual Level

b. Page Level

c. Report Level

2. Use the filters wisely as per your  requirement.

• Limit the number of visuals in the report

1. If we place so many visuals on the single page, it will slow down the performance.

2. We recommend using a maximum of eight visuals per page.

3. Sometimes, based on requirement we need to add more visual on the page, at that time we need to prioritize and choose visualization wisely.

• Remove unnecessary interaction to improve the Performance

1. By default, interaction is added to every visualization.

2. We recommend turning off the interaction if it is not needed which will improve the report performance.

• Use Certified Custom visuals

1. If the organization is planning to use any custom visuals in future, make sure it is certified.

2. Certified custom visual is the custom visual which facilities the functionality to be exported to PowerPoint and email subscription.

3. To know more about the certified custom visualization, please refer to the following here.

• Do not use Hierarchical Slicers

1. We recommend, not to use any hierarchical slicers in the report.

2. Currently, we have observed that no hierarchical slicers are used in the report.

• Also, before planning any report development, we will consider the following points

1. First, we think about the data in Grid

2. We use proper suitable charts which represent the data in an effective manner.

3. Use the proper color scheme.

4. Do not mess up, make it simple.Use simple titles and headers.

Conclusion

This is how we recommend the best practice to prepare the Power BI report. Hope you love this article. Stay connected with me for more amazing articles!