Power BI Blog: Metric Visuals Updated

Welcome back to this week’s edition of the Power BI
blog series.  This week, we look at added support for composite models and
Dynamic M Query Parameters.

Power BI has
recently updated streamlining the creation and sharing of metrics.  In particular, this affects:

• Metric
  visuals
• Move and
  copy scorecard
• Follow
  metrics
• Share link
  to a metric.

Let’s plough
through them.

Metric Visuals

The Scorecard
visual shipped last year has now been updated to include metric visuals.  This provides a level of flexibility in
integrating metrics into your Power BI reporting solutions.  You can now include individual metrics instead
of the entire scorecard and create report pages showcasing metrics alongside
other visuals, in the context of the rest of the report data.

You may either
create a new metric or add a metric from an existing scorecard as a visual in
the report.

You can create a
metric by either entering values or connecting to data in reports you have
access to.

You may view notes,
perform check-ins, set up rules on this metric, just like on a regular
scorecard.

You can also format
the metric visual to the look and feel of the rest of the report and it is
configurable with options to turn the individual metric elements (such as
targets, owner etc.) on / off.

It should be noted
that his will be available in Power BI Service by the time you read this and
will be made available in Power BI Desktop later in August.

Move / Copy Scorecard

Many organisations
have “template” scorecards that different departments or business groups might
want to use as a starting point. 
Alternatively, you might want to develop a “test” scorecard in ‘My
workspace’ to make sure the metrics are working correctly before moving it to
the correct workspace when it’s ready to share.  You can now do all this using the new move or
copy scorecard functionality.

You can move the
entire scorecard with all the scorecard features and metadata including the
check-ins, status rules as-is to a new workspace.  You will be provided with a dropdown of a list
of workspaces you have access to pick from.

Copy scorecard has
the option to include / exclude check-in history.  This makes it easy to reuse the same scorecard
for a newer time period (for example, for fiscal year scorecards) so you don’t
have to do this all over again.

The copy scorecards
capability is also useful in getting started quickly if you want to create a
new scorecard by reusing the metric definition from an existing scorecard.

Follow Metrics

You can now use the
‘Follow’ functionality to quickly access metrics you’re interested in and stay
up to date on the activity on these metrics. You can follow metrics as you’re
browsing through different scorecards and later access all your followed
metrics in one place.

You can view all
the metrics you are following in the Metrics hub under the ‘Following’ section.
 Clicking on a metric tile takes you to
the scorecard containing the metric.  This
makes it easy to get a quick overview of the metrics you care about without
having to navigate to different scorecards often.

Once you follow a
metric, you will get Teams notifications right in the activity feed and as a
banner (Toast card) whenever the metric definition is updated, a check-in is
added or when an automated status rule changes the status of the metric.  When you click the notification, the scorecard
opens and the Details pane for the metric is shown.  This Teams integration makes it easy to stay
up to date about the metrics you follow without having to leave Teams to view
the scorecards.

Share Direct Link to
a Metric

Often you might
want to draw someone else’s attention to a specific metric in a scorecard for
them to look at it.  Now, instead of
having to @mention someone
in a new check-in, you can reference a metric by simply sharing a direct link
to it.  When a metric is selected on a
scorecard, the URL in the address bar is now updated with the metric ID.  The link in the ‘Share’ scorecard option also
has been updated to include the metric ID if a metric is selected.  When the recipient opens the link, they now
will be able to view the scorecard with the Details pane of that metric open.

Check back next week for more Power BI tips
and tricks!