Design reports to highlight values

  • 5 minutes

Highlighting values in reports helps you to quickly communicate important and relevant facts about data. Power BI supports several techniques to highlight values:

  • Conditional formatting
  • Overlaid analytics
  • Anomaly detection
  • Specialized visuals

Conditional formatting

You can use conditional formatting to format table and matrix visuals. With this approach, you can apply rules to highlight specific cells by using:

  • Background color
  • Font color
  • Data bars
  • Icons

The following image shows an example of a matrix visual with icons. The icons highlight the On hand values.

Image shows a matrix visual titled "Inventory on hand breakdown". The On hand column includes various city values. A circular icon indicates highest and lowest values. An empty circle represents the lowest value; a filled circle represents the highest value.

Note

Consider that report consumers might be blind or have low vision. Take care not to highlight by using only color. Instead, consider using icons that can use shape and color to communicate status.

For more information, see Use conditional formatting in tables.

Overlaid analytics

You can also overlay analytics to highlight values. Certain visuals, like the line chart visual, allow you to add analytic options. Options include trend lines, constant lines, minimum or maximum lines, and many others.

Image shows the Analytics pane. Sections include Trend line, and many other line types.

The following image is an example of a trend line. The upward gradient of the trend line clearly indicates that returns are increasing over time.

Image shows a line chart titled Returns over time. The time series is for returns made during the month of June . An overlaid trend line that is a dashed line indicates that returns are increasing over time.

For more information, see Use the Analytics pane in Power BI Desktop.

Anomaly detection

When a time series (date field) is on the X-axis, two additional analytic options are available. These options use AI to produce a forecast or find anomalies. The anomaly detection feature can help you highlight exceptional values.

The following example shows a line chart visual. Power BI detected an anomaly on a particular date and marked it with a shape. When the report consumer hovers the cursor over the shape, a tooltip appears that describes expected values.

Graphical user interface Description automatically generated.

Select the anomaly shape to open the Anomalies pane, which lists a series of visuals that provide further possible explanations.

For more information, see Anomaly detection.

Specialized visuals

Some specialized visuals can help to highlight values in your reports; specifically, the Key influencers visual and the Decomposition Tree visual.