Forum Discussion
Trouble configuring PBI desktop report visualization to reproduced excel PP charts???
Hi
First... Kudos to the MS PowerPivot and PBI teams for advancing self-service data analytics. Excel PP&PV leverages the Excels strengths to offer IT independent big data analytic capability and much need front end visualizations… charts! It’s a big deal!
In spite of my enthusiasm for PBI and Excel PP, I’m finding I’m one of a very small subset of Excel users here at work with hands on experience with Power Pivot/Power query or PBI. This is not optimum for flattening the DAX and M learning curves.
Still, I’ve managed to create a great set of dynamic charts using excels PP/PQ linked to multiple data sources. The productivity gains and frankly the “wows” put the wind back in my sails, and I keep moving forward. But now… I need help.
In two weeks our company will migrates 35K employees to MS office 365 enterprise. I’ve been working to develop and load the first cloud base O365 Power BI app. Using PBI Desktop I’ve linked data sources, meshed power query data transformations and loaded DAX measures all modeled on the working Excel PP data model and dynamic charts. But now I’m stumped trying to configure PBI visualizations (charts) to represent the dynamic Excel PP charts. Any specific ideas or suggestions on a path forward to complete the first PBI app on office 365’s day one would make life great again…
Thanks,
Josh
2 Replies
- Shahid12523
Community Champion
Focus on the standard visuals in Power BI (bar, line, combo, pie, scatter, matrix, KPI, cards).
For missing chart types → check AppSource Custom Visuals (waterfall, bullet, funnel, Gantt, etc.).
Use DAX measures to replicate the dynamic calculations from Excel PP.
Use slicers, hierarchies, drill-down, and interactions to replace Excel’s pivot interactivity.
Test your Excel charts → identify which are replicable with built-in visuals, and which need custom visuals.
Bottom line: not all Excel PP visuals can be copied directly. Translate your metrics into DAX, then choose the closest Power BI visual (or custom visual) to achieve the same storytelling.
