The Most Valuable Report Page in Power BI Desktop

[cmengel]

The Most Valuable Report Page in Power BI Desktop

You know when you're building a report page in Power BI Desktop and you add something to the canvas and it breaks the entire page?  Ever had that happen?  Yeah, me too.

Ever get a question from a report consumer about a given report page or dashboard and then you have go and research what's going on?  Yeah, me too.

What's a BI Developer to do?  Well, I'd like to offer you an option.  It's a very special report page and it can be easily added to any Power BI report.  I give you the Scratchpage.

I started doing this early in my career.  I needed a way to troubleshoot a visual or a measure or see what was going on in a calculation.  I created a new blank report page and hide it.  Next, I added whatever slicers and filters I needed to mimic the filter context of report page I was working on.  This Scratchpage was a free form space to work out problems, run experiments, interrogate my data model all without 'messing up' my pretty pixel perfect page for my consumers.  I've also shared my Scratchpages with my teammates.  It's a great way to collaborate.

I LOVE my Scratchpages!!!  One of my most popular reports has six different Scratchpages that are all setup for different purposes and scenarios.  These pages are my Go To pages to answer questions, validate functionality, monitor data quality and data profiles, and run experiments.  I've learned a TON from these Scratchpages and that's why they are the most valuable report page in all Power BI Desktop.

How about you?  Have you ever used a technique like this?  Give it try.  It's easy, it's fun and it's a great way to learn and grow.

[jdbuchanan71]

When Microsoft released user personalization of visuals I took advantage of that to create an ad hoc report set that the users can personalize and bookmark.  It is along the lines of what you are describing.

The report has 4 pages that I deploy with a bar minimum of fields just to get them started.

• Table with charts - a prettier view if they are looking to do a presentation
• Table - this is the most used, it is the data extract tool they use
• Trending Table Across - Matrix with month year on the columns
• Trending Table Down - Matrix with month year on the rows

Then, in the filter panel I include a ton of fields that they can interact with to get to pretty much any slice of their data they want.

They can use the pages to layout their reports then bookmark them.  It has been very well received and cut down a ton on requests for custom reports.

[ebeery]

Hey @cmengel , nice post!

I use these too all the time.

One thing to be aware of though, if you didn't already know:

Depending on settings, the PDF and PowerPoint "Export" features within Power BI Service will often give the users an option not to "Exclude hidden report tabs".  This means, that if they uncheck the box below, your "Scratchpages" could appear in their PowerPoint/PDF exports.

I've actually been burned by users "discovering" pages which were still in development this way, and so learned my lesson to use these carefully.

[cmengel]

Great point!  Thanks for highlighting this!