Why are dashboard editing capabilities so limited in service?

[pborah]

I added visualizations from various reports to my dashboard. However within the dashboard, it seems there is very limited or negligible editing capabilities to make any further fine grained changes to the appearance. It feels extremely rudimentary! Following is a list of capabilities I found missing- 

• Can't upload an image to a tile from local computer. As a possible workaround I can publish a report with all the images I need and pin those to the dashboard.
• Can't resize a custom image background to fit the dashboard. Again, it only takes urls, no abiltility to upload a local image. 
• No fine grain control for resizing tiles. It's either 1x,2x,3x, etc. of the default tile size or nothing. Cannot think of any workaround for this.
• No option to change font alignment for visual titles - left, center, right, top, bottom, etc. 
• Text boxes pinned from reports change their sizes in the dashboard and you are forced to have it as some multiple (1x,2x,3x, etc.) of the default tile size. Sometimes this can lead to a lot of empty space.
• No word wrap for visual titles. This is especially annoying if I have to display a metric/KPI with a long title, there is a lot of empty space if I want to resize the tile to display the title fully.
• Data colors from the reports also don't carry over or stay the same even when I choose a custom theme (instead of the default ones) for the dashboard and only change the background to a solid color.  Sometimes colors convey meaning, e.g. - red, yellow, green for bad, okay, good etc. and the user may want to retain that when carrying over from report to a dashboard.

If I missed anything with regards to the following issues please feel free to correct me. No one would be happier than me to know that I was wrong about those and infact doing those things are possible. Heck I'll even take painful workarounds. These are very basic capabilities that SHOULD be there! Thank you.

[v-kelly-msft]

Hi @pborah ,

For question 1:

You can add images according to below reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/service-dashboard-add-widget
For question 2:

Check the similar thread and reference below:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Inserting-static-local-Image-into-PowerBI-report/td-p/35854...

https://www.cathrinewilhelmsen.net/2018/12/17/custom-power-bi-themes-page-background-images/#:~:text...

For question 3 ,4 and 5:

You may try to pin a live page to the dashboard:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/service-dashboard-pin-live-tile-from-report

For question 7:

Check the reference below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-report-themes

Above is what I found may be a solution or workaround per your requests,but frankly speaking,dashboard fuction is not that perfect,you can propose your idea via below link to make the features you need realize soon:

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas

Best Regards,
Kelly

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[pborah]

hi @v-kelly-msft ,

Thank you for your response. Those workarounds are not ideal at this point, for e.g. answer#7 I cannot just use a color theme when my colors are tied to data values, answer #1 still doesn't tell me how to add a local image to the dashboard, answer #2 basically reiterates what I proposed as a workaround to question#1 in my post already, and if I'm pinning a live page to a dashboard, then what really is the need for a dashboard, etc.

We were looking to create landing pages for our organizational apps but given the limited functionality, we have decided to create just reports that look like landing pages and have them as the first page of our apps. 

An additional issue I discovered was the lack of ability to add custom buttons in the dashboard itself. I understand that if a report contains a button, that can be imported to a dashboard but it has to come from a report first. 

In any case, we will wait for the dashboard feature to become more robust in the future before we really start using it. Our main reasons for going to the service were the shareability, subscription, and the abgility to open certain reports to the public. 

[v-kelly-msft]

Hi @pborah ,

Yes,currently it's unavailable to upload a local pic to a dashboard directly,but you can upload the picture to cloud service then get it via adding a tile,as I suggested in my last reply.Or you can get it in desktop then upload to Service.

Dashboard function is not that perfect,you can propose your idea via below link to make the features you need realize soon:

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas

Best Regards,
Kelly

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[pborah]

hi @v-kelly-msft , 

I have submitted my ideas. Hope they get some votes over time. Thank you for your help!