Reid Havens joined us to answer your Power BI visualizations questions.

Connect with Reid Havens: https://twitter.com/HavensBI

Can we enhance / customize key influencer chart logic? (14:04)

The Key Influencer visual’s categorical analysis doesn’t seem to work when we set DiscourageImplicitMeasures = True in the model (as part of Calculation Groups creation). Is it a known issue? (15:20)

Just as action can be defined for image or button object, can we define action on slicer (i.e. depending on a selection, some action should happen)? (18:14)
Any way to create a navigation landing page inside a Power Bi App but without opening a new web browser tab? Thinking on integration inside Teams and that’s not the behavior I would expect. (19:58)

Reid, how did you come up with your introduction music in your YT channel? (23:47)

Where is the best place to start if we want to learn how to design custom visuals? (25:00)

Is there a map available where you can use 2 location lat & long? (26:18)

Can we conditional format Matrix visual headers? (29:33)

What is your inspiration for the designs you make and how do you come to those ideas? Are those crazy client requests? (31:45)

Can we have button to refresh visuals in Power BI report? (35:02)

Which custom visual do you feel is missing out-of-the-box in Power BI? Or is there a custom visual that you would like to make that is just not existing today? (36:37)

In the Key influencer visual…Top Segments…Learn More about this section: …the “comparing proportions” part of this seems to not show the correct proportions. Has anyone seen this? (38:01)

If you cannot understand a visual in a report after 3-5 seconds, you have a problem. Advice from a BI oldie. (40:57)

How many reports from the workspace are included in the “current version” of the Power BI Service App. Is there any API field to show which workspace is published as App and what reports are included in that release? New reports published in workspace will have “included in app” switched on so we cannot rely on the current state of the workspace. (42:20)

SVG graphics can be used create sparklines and other complex in-line graphics. They are limited to only square visuals. Have you found a work-around? (43:30)

How do I connect a Power BI workspace to .pbix files in a SharePoint folder and when can I just save report changes versus re-publish to the service? (45:23)

How can I set the color of one word in a string on matrix/table or any visual? This would highlight/bold just that word. Bonus if this could be dynamically, i.e. choose the word in a slicer. (48:45)

I want to add Power App visuals on older import connection type models – how can I change them to DirectQuery or do I need to rebuild the PBIX? (50:37)
The card visual’s background color turns to white while pinning it to dashboard. Any way to fix this? (52:44)

Performance. Performance. Performance. I cringe thinking about having DAX do all these custom things like header titles, custom button nav, etc. where do you find that balance? (54:18)

Can we connect D3 visuals directly to Power BI is there any work around!? (57:35)

Can you disable dynamic axis in power bi, as in, always show zero axis (58:55)

In your design process how much effort do you put into mobile views, and do you have any tips for mainly mobile viewed reports? (1:01:10)

Have you ever faced issues with aspect ratio when designing it in “Fix to width” mode. Mine went for a toss and I realized it only after seeing it in full screen mode. (1:04:54)

What book do you recommend for visualizations? (1:09:13)

Q: If Previous month value is greater than current month value then replace current value with previous number else retain current month value. How to solve this using DAX.

Q: is there any way can I have dynamic parameter where I need to capture parameter value entered by user and pass in to DAX calc ?

Q: Can we have initial selections or state of an application when opened in Power BI Service every time? If this can be set as bookmark, can we have bookmark as URL parameter?

Q: Does Adam call you “Chatmaster C” all week, or only during the stream?

Q: How do I convince management that Power BI developers need more than 8GB of RAM on our machines?

Q: how can I use a common table to show data of the same type but from different regions. for example sales info from different regions.

Q: For Reid – The pressing question – Team Cap or Team Iron Man?

Q: What would be Reid’s top 5 rules to respect while creating the visuals on a dashboard ? (e.g. design, colors, size etc.)

Q: How do you do source control with pbix files?

Q: Why can’t we make a line chart “Smoothed” like we can in Excel?

Q: There is 4 Tabs in pbi file, 1st two tabs need to give permission to one user & other two other tabs need to give permission for another user. is that possible in pbi service ?

Q: training users how to interact with visuals (proper, not matrix) and allowing them to personalize vs allowing them to use AI enhanced visuals? (as of now, not in 2-3 years when AI’ll be smarter)

Q: How to make one interactive Power BI? For example, the forecast in Power BI is 100K$, I can type in the override +15K$, it shows 100K$+15K$=115K$.

Q: What is the best way to share Power BI reports on Power BI Service with users who don’t have Power BI Pro license?

Q: Is there any way to create a filter that works for all reports in a Power BI App?

Q: For engineering small multiple/group by, charts are essential, any way other than R/Python to do this in power bi?

Q: Are there any good resources where I can find power BI projects, when I mentioned project like a real problem/BI information with given data other than adventures works data.

Q: I lost one-night sleep with a boolean field coming from a SP List, until finally figured out to change the data type in PBI to boolean… question answered, but was new for me…

Q: any way to have to show the gradient legend in map visual(powered by bing) not on arcgis maps.

Q: having cleaned and prepped data, what is your workflow to start visualizations from a blank page? Template layout with theme? Then prioritized business questions of the data? Any best practice?

Q: I have slicer showing last 3 quarter dynamically. how to show most recent quarter default selected when quarter changes.

Q: Sparklines?

Q: I have a table with 5 columns that is a hierarchy of financial levels. Is there a way to create a slicer where the options are the column headers?

Q: How to develop a multitenant saas application with power bi embedded . Can you help with the best approach ?

Q: how you make the selection of date slicer in a measure don’t change when a outer filter is applied..the date Range is from they factTable..

Q: I have a file need to send different plants every Monday. Every of them will fill up one column with text reason back. Then I reconsolidate them into one file. How to make this process more easier?

Q: Is there any free custom visual for 3D models? specially for IFC and BIM models?

Q: I have Powerapps form to edit data in Excel. So can we refresh Power BI data as we can’t use direct query for Excel? I am using Flow to refresh backend data

Q: is possible to download multiples excels based slicer values? I.e) user enter Two Customer nums in slicers then when he is export report/view it should be download into separate excel files?

Q: can we configure to open different homepage for different user without trigger like custom page navigation on button

Q: what’s the limitations of Power BI Report Server developer edition?

Q: Is it possible to see the unused columns of my datamodel to keep it small. Unused in relationships, DAX (measures/calculated columns) and visualizations.

Q: m code vrs dax code. when each is best?

Q: Might be a newbie question, can you stop loading of the same table over and over again, I want to load it so it remains there but doesn’t enter into load again? For example, date table.

Q: Adding tooltip on python visuals, is that possible ?

Q: For reports using DirectQuery, how do you create measures that requires you to extract data from imported dataset?

Q: If we have Python script in PQ to do ETL, can we use it inside enterprise gateway?

Q: In a custom visual can we call an API without CORS Error?

Q: is there a way to set different frequency for different query’s in scheduled refresh?

Q: can we configure to open different homepage for different user without trigger like custom page navigation on button

Q: Can we use external JavaScript Library in custom visual?

Q: Deployment pipelines – When I try to put a workspace into a pipeline, it gives an error “Workplace includes unsupported items”, its kind of a vague error, do you know what it refers to?

Q: Do we have a way to by bypass RLS using Dax?

Q: What’s the best resource for explaining storytelling to new Power BI users? I need to set homework for a Power BI boot camp

Q: Reid – apart from the awesome training videos coursed (paid) by GIC – where would you suggest for self-paced video BI beg, med, advanced training online?

Q: Reid, what would be the top 5 rules while creating the visuals on a report in terms of design?

Q: Is there a visual for doing a horizontal rolling text like a status from left to right on a time interval?

Q: What 3 tips would you suggest for troubleshooting Power BI Dataflow issues?

Q: Is there a way to remove padding from a slicer visual on a horizontal view which will allow to place visuals really tight.. Coz whn we try to reduce its size it shows filter sybl n not the slicer.

Q: I have a report with 5 fact tables contains 10 mil rows in Direct Query in one pbix file. It is mainly to avoid end users have to change slicer values separately for each file. is it a good idea?

Q: Can you reduce padding in slicers

Q: How do you approach managing security for Dataflows across departments without creating an explosion of Dataflow workspaces?

Q: Any work around to trigger an alert if there are any changes in a matrix visual ?

Q: Reid any storytelling book/resource to recommend?