Populate a Tooltip from a Data Dictionary

[Erosenthal]

I'm on a mission to standardize the definitions for various metrics/variables in my company's PowerBI reports, and would like to have the tooltip include a definition populated from a separate source (right now we're talking about having it be a sharepoint list, but that shouldn't be a sticking point). That way, no matter who is creating the report, we'd have a standard definition ready for the tooltip.

The only way I've found to do this is to create a tooltip page for each metric, which seems a little cumbersome to me.  Is there a better way? I've investigated possibly using python for this (looks like I should be able to get the gettooltip method described here to work), but also I'm very much a beginner at python, so I don't want to spend too much time on it if there's another solution.

[Ahmed-Elfeel · Accepted solution]

Hi @Erosenthal,

For doing standardized tooltips from a data dictionary there is about 3 or 4 approaches you can try

First Approach:

you can use Field Parameters and Data Dictionary Table to achieve this:

• Create your Data Dictionary table in Power Query:

// Just An Example
let
    Source = Table.FromRows({
        {"Days in Warehouse", "Number of calendar days an item has been in warehouse storage", "Operations"},
        {"Inventory Turnover", "Cost of goods sold divided by average inventory", "Finance"},
        {"Order Fill Rate", "Percentage of orders completely filled from stock", "Operations"}
    }, type table [Metric=text, Definition=text, Category=text])
in
    Source

• Then create relationships between your fact tables and the data dictionary

• Also use the Definition field directly in tooltips by adding it to the Tooltips field in your visuals

Second Approach:

If you prefer DAX you can use calculated columns with LOOKUPVALUE

Definition = 
LOOKUPVALUE(
    'Data Dictionary'[Definition],
    'Data Dictionary'[Metric], [Your Metric Field]
)

Third Approach:

Create a single reusable tooltip page that works for all metrics:

• Create one tooltip report page

• Add a measure that detects the current contxt:

Current Metric Definition = 
VAR CurrentMetric = SELECTEDVALUE('Table'[Metric Name])
RETURN
CALCULATE(
    SELECTEDVALUE('Data Dictionary'[Definition]),
    'Data Dictionary'[Metric] = CurrentMetric
)

• Finally use this measure in your tooltip page

Bonus Approach:

• This is the modern approach which you can use field Parameters to create dynamic metrics then combine with your data dictionary

I recommend you Approach No.1 as it is the most Straightforward and Maintainable Solution 🎊❤️

if this post helps, then I would appreciate a thumbs up and mark it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin]

Please clarify what you mean by "metric" . Measures?

Please clarify what you mean by "tooltip".  Descriptions?

[Erosenthal]

Sure!  For metric - the specifics aren't all that important, but as I'm doing reports on metrics, they would be the data fields I would input.  For example, I may have multiple reports that have 'Days in Warehouse', and I would want to make sure that the ToolTip defining the 'Days in Warehouse' metric is the same across reports by having them populate from a single location.

For ToolTip - I mean the PowerBI Tooltips (sorry, I have only heard them referred to as that).  The pop up that shows up when you hover over a visual to give you more information.