Custom Visuals in Power BI

[rajendraongole1]

There is a lot of custom visualizations that you can use to make a report. Power BI offers a good set of in-built visuals such as 

1.line chart

2.bar chart

3.funnel chart

4.KPI

5.map

6.pie chart

7.donut chart, etc.

You can access and use these pre-packaged visuals from the Visualization pane in Power BI Desktop.

Power BI offers a rich library of custom visuals from which you can select, import to Power BI Desktop and use as per business requirement.

Custom visuals are created by developers using the custom visuals SDK.

Developers use JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, D3, R-language scripts, etc. to create custom visuals from scratch.

Once a custom visual is ready, it is then tested and debugged.

After it is ready and secure, a developer packages it in the .pbiviz file and share it within an organization or upload it on AppSource as an open-source data visualization.

From the AppSource, any Power BI user (author) can import the custom visual to use it in their report.

Power BI custom visuals are divided into below categories:

•Custom All visual files

•Organizational visuals

•Appsource visuals

Organizational Visuals

The custom visual files are the .pbiviz files that contain codes to run custom visual in your Power BI app. Developers create custom visual codes and package them in custom visual files having .pbiviz extension. The customers or report makers download these files into their system and use them in their Power BI reports.

However, there is one important thing to note, you must make sure that the custom visual you are importing is from a trusted source or power bi certified visuals.

The custom visual should be free from any kind of security and privacy risk.

Organizational visuals are the visualizations, custom-made for use within an organization.

The Power BI admin (administrator) takes care of the deployment and management of the custom organizational visuals. The admin uploads selected custom visuals from the Power BI Admin Portal to the organizational visual’s repository. Users or report authors take these custom visuals into Power BI Desktop for their use

AppSource Visuals

Marketplace visuals are tested and approved custom visuals from Microsoft and its fellow community members. Such custom visuals are developed and uploaded on AppSource. 

Microsoft subjects some selected visuals to even more rigorous quality and risk testing.

The visuals that pass such testing are called certified visuals. These visuals provide some additional functionality as well, such as email subscriptions, export to PowerPoint, etc.

Business Apps – Microsoft AppSource

Step 1: Go to the Microsoft AppSource website. The AppSource home page will open.

Select the Apps tab from the bar on the top.

Step 2: Select Power BI Visuals options.

Step 3: The page will show more than 200 results of Power BI visuals. You can browse the list of available custom visuals.

Step 4: Let’s say, we want to use the KPI Matrix in our Power BI report. You can select what you require by reading the descriptions of each visual. Click on Get it now.

Step 5: Click on Continue in the next window.

Importing Custom Visuals from File

The custom visuals that you’ll download from AppSource will get downloaded in your system at a default location. We will get those custom visuals in Power BI Desktop through Import from file option.

To do this, follow these steps.

Step 1: Open Power BI Desktop in your system. From the Visualizations pane, click on the ellipses … icon. Then, select Import from file option.

Step 2: Select the .pbiviz custom visual file from the

destination. Then click on Open

Step 3: A message prompt indicating successful import of file will appear on Power BI Desktop.

Step 4: As shown in the screenshot below, the Power KPI Matrix graph that we imported is shown in Visualizations pane and is ready to be used.

Importing custom visuals from Get more visuals

To import custom visuals available on the more visuals, follow the steps given here.

Step 1: Click on the ellipsis’s icon … in the Visualizations pane. Select Import from Get more visuals option.

Step 2: The Power BI visuals dialog box will open. You will find tabs at the top; All visuals, My Organization and Appsource Visuals. Click on all visuals. You will see a list of all the available custom visuals. Also, you can select a category and then browse for the custom visuals. You can also directly type the name of a visual or category that you are looking for in the search area.

Step 3: Select a custom visual from the list and click on Add. The visual will be added in your Power BI Desktop’s Visualizations pane. For instance, we have selected the Text filter custom visual from the AppSource

Importing Organizational Custom Visuals

Just like we saw how to import custom visuals from the AppSource, we have power bi admin part  organizational custom visuals.

To import custom visuals available in your organization’s repository, follow the steps given here.

Summary:

This concludes my blog on custom visuals in Power BI.

Please like share and let me know if any questions on the same by writing comments below.

Regards,

Rajendra