Explore Small Multiples for the New Card Visual in Power BI

[saud968]

Power BI November 2024 update brings a new intriguing feature - Small Multiples for the new card visual. This enhances reports to be more informative and presentable by breaking a single card visual into multiple smaller ones to represent different parts of the data.

What are Small Multiples?
Multiple instances of the same visual, side-by-side in different dimensions, are known as small multiples. This helps compare data across many segments at a glance. For instance, you can split a sales performance card visual by region, product category, or time to give a holistic view of your data.

Key Features

1. Multiple Cards in One Container: The new card visual supports displaying multiple cards within a single container, each representing a different slice of your data.
2. Customizable Layouts: Choose from horizontal, vertical, or grid layouts to best fit your report design.
3. Enhanced Formatting Options: Customize the appearance of each card, including conditional formatting, font transparency, and more.
4. Dynamic Interactivity: Each card can have its own tooltips and drill-through capabilities, so users can delve deeper into a piece of data.

 Using Small Multiples

To add Small Multiples for the new card visual:

1. Add the New Card Visual: Insert the new card visual from the visual gallery in the Power BI Desktop.
2. Configure Fields to Display: Drag and drop the fields you want to display into the data field well.
3. Turn on Small Multiples: In the formatting pane, navigate to the small multiples formatting option and select the dimension by which you would like to split the data.
4. Customize Layout and Formatting: Adjust layout settings and apply formatting to each card for the desired report design.

Benefits of Using Small Multiples

1. Improved Data Comparison: Easily compare the categories of your data side-by-side.
2. Enhanced Visual Appeal: Create a more engaging and informative report with a clean and organized layout.
3. Greater Insight: Gain deeper insights by analyzing data across multiple categories simultaneously.

Conclusion
Small Multiples can be introduced as a new card visual in Power BI, which is exciting in data visualization. It gives users the ability to make reports more detailed and interactive, easily bringing out insights to help them decide data-driven. Try this feature in the recently released Power BI update and take your data visualization to the next level!

[Vaibhav_m]

Amazing information.

[MaximeBo]

Hi,

Thank you for this article!
I am trying it out and wondering something. I chose the layout of my small multiple arrangement to be a single column, but the column is very narrow, and I do not seem to be able to find a way to make it wider. Is it to come in a later release or have I missed something?

[saud968]

@MaximeBo  download this GitHub - https://github.com/powerbibro/powerbibro/blob/main/PBI%20-%2020241212%20-%20Card%20Small%20Multiples... file it will help you understand how small multiple works and will help you in your query. 

[MaximeBo]

@saud968 Thank you for the link!

Apparently the author has not changed the width of the column for the headers, and he does not mention it in his latest video, so I assume that it is not possible to do it yet. I will have to wait a little bit to make it look nicer!

[saud968]

@MaximeBo Yeah even I tried currently there is no option to change the column width for headers. 

[akhillamcor]

@saud968 , have you found that, when using small multiples, that conditional formatting within Reference Labels values works?

Right now I have a visual that uses small multiples and a reference label.  My conditional format for the reference label value is based off a measure.  However, within 5 small multiples that have different values that SHOULD trigger different colors, all the colors are the same.  

My first thought was a filter context isn't correct.  To test that, I did two things:

1. I hardcoded (Rules) the conditional format based on a value in the conditional format.  No change
1. Put the value of the measure as a reference label itself.  Within small multiples hex color value appears correct.  So I know my color measure works correctly within filter contexts at least at the reference label value part.

2. I filtered to 1 small multiple (out of my 5), and then the conditional formatting works

So where I'm at is I think that the small multiple filter context does not filter to a conditional formatting formula.

Anyone else seeing similar things?

[saud968]

@akhillamcor check this PBI file it uses the reference label with condition color and Icon in small multiples - https://github.com/powerbibro/powerbibro/blob/main/PBI%20-%2020241212%20-%20Card%20Small%20Multiples... 

[akhillamcor]

@saud968 Thank you!  I still think there is an issue with filter contexts, let me explain:

When looking at the file, I'm looking at the "Single Column" page.  For each 'Returned' card, I'm looking at the Reference Label - Detail field circled below, it's "Units Total Returned %"

 

The conditional format works - but it's simply showing Red.  What if I want that detail value to only highlight Red when it's equal or over 24%?  Rocky Mountains Return % should be Green at 19%, while every other small multiple should be Red.  So, in that Reference Label, in that Detail Value, I change the formatting to be:

And similar to my issue, I get the following.  The value is showing correctly for the small multiple filter context.  Rocky Mountains small multiple is showing 19%, but the conditional formatting is still showing Pink, whereas I would expect it to show Green.

When I filter down to the Rocky Mountains small multiple, in the SAME visual, I get the following result:

So clearly the filter context works on the value - it always shows 19%.  But the conditional formatting based on the value is NOT filtering down to the small multiple on the visual.   I think this is a bug.  If it's intentional, I would question what the point of having a conditional format formula on a reference label detail in a small multiple if it just calculates an aggregation and doesn't use the filter context of the small multiple.

Thoughts?