Understanding Power BI Dashboards

What Is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a single-page view of important business metrics and visual summaries. It helps users monitor performance without opening multiple detailed reports.

For example, a sales dashboard might display:

• Total revenue.
• Total orders.
• Profit margin.
• Monthly sales trends.
• Best-performing regions.
• Progress toward sales targets.

These metrics give managers a quick overview of business performance.

In Power BI, dashboards are created in the Power BI Service. Power BI Desktop is primarily used to create reports, which can then be published to the Service.

Dashboard vs. Report

Dashboards and reports serve different purposes.

A dashboard can contain tiles pinned from reports and other supported sources. Selecting a tile may open the underlying report for deeper analysis.

When Should You Use a Dashboard?

Dashboards are useful when users need to monitor important indicators frequently.

For example:

• A sales manager monitors revenue and target achievement.
• An operations team tracks order processing and delivery performance.
• A finance team monitors expenses and profitability.
• An executive reviews business performance across departments.

Use a dashboard for a high-level overview and a report when users need detailed exploration.