Flexible and dynamic visualisation

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon fellow BI users,

I am a PowerBI novice, and so this may perhaps be a stupid question, but I havent been able to find a solution anywhere to the best of my knowledge.

My underlying data in a nutshell has the following characteristics:

- 1000s of individual persons

- For each person we have a number of characteristics, e.g. gender (person 1 = married, person 2 = single etc etc.)

- For each person we also have several timeseries of data e.g. salary data for every year 2000-2020, annual visits to dentist for every year 2000-2020 etc etc.

As I have a lot of data points for each individual, i can not make a seperate graph for every purpose. The dashboard would explode in size. But users require very different data points.

So what I am instead trying to do, is a construct single graph that displays data in a very flexible manner. Customised by the user, using slicers / selection buttons (whatever is best)

So to give an example: I would have a line graph, consisting of 5 lines. Every line contains the SUM of a certain characteristic (e.g. salary) across theindividuals selected with certain characteristics selected.

I think that for every line I would then need individual, line-specific slicers.

(e.g. line 1 = Male, Person 1-70 selected.

Line 2 = Male, Persons 71-100 selected,

Line 3 = Female, Persons 1-100 selected).

is this possible in the current BI infrastructure? Responses much appreciated! thanks all.

[mahenkj2 · Accepted solution]

My response might not be exact answer you are looking for, but this is what I have following so far and can give you a direction:

When I started learning and using PowerBI or say data visualization, I was also overwhelmed by the ease of information available to summarize and then needs of all those diffeent users. With time, I am now settled with using relevant filters on the top of each report, putting 3-4 visual on a report page, they also filter each other if clicked and may be using 3-4 card visual summarizing some key metric. and then if this all not enough, then just make 2-3 or reports grouping relevant information together.

This all does not need any complex formulaes. Though, your data model should be based on dimension modelling (my preferred and only approach), so that report can be sliced and diced as much needed, because such models if created well then they take care of actual process and infinite possibilities to answer all questions.

At last if above is not good enough, keep a page of Q&A for any random question by the users.

[v-chenwuz-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

I recommand you to use Q&A visual in a report in Power BI.

The Q&A visual allows users to ask natural language questions and get answers in the form of a visual. Consumers can use it to quickly get answers to their data

This Q&A view makes it easy for the user to create the view she wants, a bar chart or a line chart. Then the table can be filtered using slicer.

What you are talking about contains five lines, there is no way for the user to decide what each line contains, it can only be sorted according to some existing Colum.

Or you could create all the charts the user might create, switching through bookmark. But it seems that this method is more complicated and less free.

Create a Q&A visual in a report - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

Best Regards

Community Support Team _ chenwu zhu

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[DataInsights]

@Anonymous,

It sounds as if dynamic measure selection is what you need. There are multiple ways to achieve this. The most robust way is with a calculation group, which requires Tabular Editor (free utility) to create.

https://rollingaverage.com/set-up-measure-selection-with-dynamic-formatting-in-powerbi/

Alternatively, you can create a disconnected (parameter) table and SWITCH measure.

https://radacad.com/change-the-column-or-measure-value-in-a-power-bi-visual-by-selection-of-the-slicer-parameter-table-pattern