Add visuals to a Power BI report (part 1)

APPLIES TO: Power BI Desktop Power BI service

This article gives a quick introduction to creating a visualization in a report. For more-advanced content, see Part 2 of this series.

Prerequisites

Power BI Desktop

This tutorial uses the Sales and Marketing Sample.

1. Download the sample PBIX file to your desktop.

2. Open Power BI Desktop, and from the menu bar, select File > Open report.

3. Browse to the Sales and Marketing Sample PBIX file, then select Open.

4. On the left pane, select the Report icon to open the file in report view.

5. Select to add a new page.

Power BI service

This tutorial uses the built-in Sales and Marketing Sample in the Power BI service.

1. Open the Power BI service, then select on Get data in the bottom left corner.

2. On the Get Data page that appears, select Samples.

   

3. Select the Sales and Marketing Sample, and choose Connect.

4. Select Edit on the menu bar to display the Visualizations pane.

5. Select to add a new page.

Note

Sharing your report with a Power BI colleague requires that you both have individual Power BI Pro licenses or that the report is saved in Premium capacity. See sharing reports

Add visualizations to the report

1. Create a visualization by selecting a field from the Fields pane.

   Start with a numeric field like SalesFact > Sales $. Power BI creates a column chart with a single column.

   

   Or, start with a field, such as Product > Category. Power BI creates a table and adds that field to the Columns well.

   

   Or, select the Filled map icon and drag a geography field, such as Geo > City, to the Location well. Power BI and Bing Maps create a map visualization.

   

Change the type of visualization

Create a visualization and then change its type.

1. Select Product > Category and then Product > Count of Product to add them both to the Columns well.

   

2. Change the visualization to a column chart by selecting the Stacked column chart icon.

   

3. To change the way the visual is sorted, select More options (...) and then Sort axis. Use the menu options to change the direction of the Sort axis (ascending or descending) or change the column that is being sorted on.

   

Next steps

Continue on to:

• Part 2: Add visualizations to a Power BI report

• Interact with the visualizations in the report.