Reports in Power BI

A Power BI report is a multi-perspective view into a dataset, with visuals that represent different findings and insights from that dataset. A report can have a single visual or pages full of visuals. Depending on your job role, you may be someone who designs reports. You also may be a business user who consumes or uses reports. This article is for business users with BI Reporting.

The parts of a report

A. This report has four pages (or tabs) and you're currently viewing the Sentiment page.

B. On this page are five different visuals and a page title.

C. The Filters pane shows us one filter applied to all report pages. To collapse the Filters pane, select the arrow (>).

D. The Power BI banner displays the name of the report and the last updated date. Select the arrow to open a menu that also show the name of the report owner.

E. The action bar contains actions you can take on this report. For example, you can add a comment, view a bookmark, or export data from the report. Select More options (...) to reveal a list of additional report functionality.

If you're new to Power BI, you can get a good foundation by reading Basic concepts for the Power BI service business users. Reports are available for viewing, sharing, and annotating on mobile devices. For more info, see Explore reports in the Power BI mobile apps.

Advantages of reports

Power BI bases a report on a single dataset. Report designers create the visuals in a report to represent nuggets of information. The visuals aren't static. They update as the underlying data changes. You can interact with the visuals and filters as you dig into the data to discover insights and look for answers. Like a dashboard, but more so, a report is highly interactive and highly customizable. The extent of what you can do with a report will depend on the role and permissions assigned by the report designer.

Safely interact with content

As you explore and interact with your content: filtering, slicing, subscribing, and exporting, you can't break the reports. Your work doesn't affect the underlying dataset or the original shared content. This applies to dashboards, reports, and apps SharePoint Services Chicago.

Save your changes or revert to the default settings

That doesn't mean you can't save your changes. You can, but those changes only affect your view of the content. To revert to the original default view of the report, select the Reset icon.

Report designers and report users

Depending on your role, you may be a designer, someone who creates reports for your own use or to share with colleagues. You'll want to learn how to create and share reports.

Or you may be a business user, someone who receives reports from others. You'll want to learn how to understand and interact with the reports. If you're a report business user, these links are for you:

Start with a tour of the Power BI service so you know where to find reports and report tools.

Learn how to open a report and all the interactions available to business users.

Get comfortable with reports by taking a tour of one of our samples.

To see which dataset the report is using and which dashboards are displaying visuals from the report (pins), see View related content in the Power BI service.