Data Bars are new in Power BI (June 2017)

Looking at a bunch of data does not give a feeling for the big and small values without making comparisons by reasoning. This next table is trivial in that you can easily see the small and big values. However I have chosen this to make the explanation easy to understand.

This comparison is built into the idea of presenting data bars in Microsoft programs such as MS Excel and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 2012.

In the June 2017 version of Power BI Desktop which is in preview 'Data Bars' are supported. What Data Bars do is to show visually how big or small data values are. Here is an example from my previous post how the data is visualized after adding Data Bars.

Four types of Data Bars are shown in the above: Data Bars, Color Scales, Icon sets and 'Above average' types.

In the present version this is how 'Data Bars' feature is implemented.

I have imported the same data as in the previous post into Power BI using 'Get Data'.

I added the two fields 'State' and 'Item Value' into the fields as shown above.
 I had to rename 'State' to 'St' as 'State' may be keyword in Power BI which automatically formats as s map (this was on another page of the view)

This is probably some 'bug' in the software in this Preview version here.

Now right click the 'Item Value' in the fields as shown.

In the Conditional formatting menu choose 'Color scales'.

Here you can choose colors to represent Minimum, Middle and Maximum values and click OK.

That is all there is to it.

Map, Data Bar. Sparkline and Indicator in Report Builder 3.0

In Report Builder 2.0 there were Charts and Gadgets as shown in the following figure of the Ribbon. . They were classified under Data Regions.

These were fully discussed in my two popular articles.

http://dotnet.sys-con.com/node/982742

http://jayaramkrishnaswamy.sys-con.com/node/1227111

and from my book, first edition of my book on reporting services,

Report Builder 3.0 surfaced with SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2. From Report Builder 2.0 to Report Builder 3.0 a few more items have been added to make data visualization more interesting (Map, Data Bar. Sparkline and Indicator) These elements are shown in the following screen shot of the ribbon in Report Builder 3.0. Now they are part of the Data Visualization.

How do you get them on to your report?

Very easy!!!!.

Right click a data region on a table and click insert as shown. Also you may directly click the menu item Insert and pick the visualization you want to add.

The following post shows how you may add data bars easily and how they are related to your experience in MS Excel. Data bars are very similar to conditional formatting in Microsoft Excel.

http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-are-data-bars-in-sql-server.html

You can jump start on using all the data visualization options in Report Builder 3.0 as well as Power View in my new book on SQL Server Reporting Services.

http://goo.gl/aXPZU

Mahalo,

Jayaram Krishnaswamy

Do you want to learn SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 in record short time?

Learning SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services was released today by Packt publishers. This is my second book on Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (which may be called a second edition). It is enlarged to include Reporting Services Integration with SharePoint 2010. With 566 pages it is somewhat thicker than the first edition (Learning SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services). However, the book has a large number of screen shots like my first book and is somewhat thinner than most other books in this genre. The reviewers and technical editors have put in a lot of effort and time to make this happen.

I take this opportunity to thank the reviewers (Satya Shyam Jayanty and Ritesh Shah) for their meticulous reading of the manuscript; the technical editors, Azharuddin Sheik, Mausam Kothari, Varun Pius Rodrigues, and Lubna Shaikh and many others at Pakct Publishing for their excellent editing and Microsoft Forums' (MSDN, Technet and SharePoint) help for answering so many of my questions.

Summary of Hands-on tasks you learn:

• Install SQL Server 2012, SharePoint Server 2010, and configure Reporting Services both native and SharePoint Integrated on Windows 7
• Install SSDT and author reports, both local and remote, and deploy them to report servers
• Develop desktop and web applications by using Report Viewer controls
• Author different kinds of reports with the latest gadgets by working with Report Builder
• Manage access to the report server, report scheduling, report delivery, report uploads, and downloads with Report Manager
• Create Tabular Models with SQL Server Analysis Services and deploy them to SSAS Server using SSDT
• Author Power View Reports from your SharePoint Site and export them as Power Point files
• Learn to create Data Driven alerts in SharePoint and monitor them on SQL Agent on SSMS
• Work with Windows Azure Reporting Services using Windows Azure Portal and SSMS
• Write applications in SSIS and WPF to access reports and access native server reports from SharePoint Site

I hope this book is appreciated as much as the earlier one.

This book can now be bought from the publishers as well as other online book sellers:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Server-Reporting-Services-ebook/dp/B00DM23X5M/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372453186&sr=1-2

If you are using SQL Server 2008 then this book is for you,

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Server-2008-Reporting-Services/dp/1847196187/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372453239&sr=1-1

 

The links in the book are available here:

http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2013/06/links-in-book-learn-sql-server.html