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Create subgoals in the Power BI service

APPLIES TO: Power BI Desktop Power BI service

Goals in Power BI let you curate your goals and track them against key business objectives in a single pane. Subgoals make scorecards more readable by collecting related goals together under a single parent goal. You can expand and collapse the parent goal. Subgoals can either be standalone values, unrelated to the parent value, or they can roll up to the parent value. For more information, see rollups later in this article.

Create a subgoal

You can define one or more subgoals for a goal. Like their parent goals, subgoals can be either connected or set manually. Use one of the following methods to create a subgoal.

  1. Open a scorecard.

  2. Create a subgoal by using one of these methods:

    • Select the goal you want to create a subgoal for, then select New > Add subgoal.

    Screenshot showing how to select the Add Subgoal button.

    • Hover over the goal you want to create a subgoal for, then select More options (...) > New subgoal.

    Screenshot showing how to select more options, then add subgoal.

  3. Repeat the previous step as needed to create more subgoals.

For more information about creating manual or connected goals, see:

Create subgoals that roll up to the goal

You can also create rollup subgoals, whose values automatically aggregate up to a parent goal. These aggregations recalculate anytime the subgoal values change and capture the history. Rollups are a great way to keep a parent goal up to date without being backed by a report connection. Rollups work when subgoals are manual or connected, so you can always roll up whatever the current value is, regardless of where it's coming from.

Create rollup subgoals

Create rollup subgoals from within the edit mode of the parent goal.

  1. Select the pencil icon to enter inline editing of a goal.

    Screenshot showing a scorecard in edit mode.

  2. Next to the Current value and Final target fields, select Use subgoals.

    Screenshot showing the types of goals.

  3. Choose the aggregation type for your subgoal values:

    • SUM: A sum of the subgoal values
    • AVERAGE: An average of the subgoal values
    • MIN: Reflects the lowest subgoal value
    • MAX: Reflects the largest subgoal value

    The option you choose automatically calculates the appropriate value and shows it in the Current value or Final target area. You can set up different rollup aggregation types on the current and target value for maximum flexibility.

Preserve historical values

When you switch a goal type from connected to rollup, you might want to preserve historical values.

  1. In Edit mode for the scorecard, select More options (...) > See details next to the goal.

    Screenshot showing how to select More options, then See details.

  2. On the Connections tab, turn off the toggle labeled Clear goal values when connecting to a new report.

    Screenshot showing scorecard data connection settings toggle.

Rollup considerations

  • Rollups take place from the day you set them up moving forward. They don't remove, recalculate, or override historical data with retroactive rollup values in almost all scenarios.
  • One scenario where connected historical data is deleted is if the person creating the rollup isn't the goal connection owner. To preserve the history, ensure the goal connection owner is the same person as the rollup creator.
  • If a scorecard author changes a goal from a rollup to a connected goal and they bring in the history via report connection, the report history overrides historical rollup values.
  • New rollup types calculate with the new aggregation moving forward but don't replace the history.
  • Rollups always show the same aggregation value of all subgoals, regardless of goal level permissions. If a person only has view access to three out of five subgoals, they still see the same parent goal value as someone who has access to all subgoals.

Related content

More questions? Try the Power BI Community.

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