I use Power BI nearly every day. Sometimes it feels like the developers of the product don’t use it for actual report work. It’s easy to get stuck in a development bubble when building tools like this and missing some obvious functionality. I truly think that’s what’s happened with Power BI development.
Here is a list of features I wish they would implement that would make a massive difference to the user experience:
- Performance when adding a measure or column. Adding a new measure or column to a small / simple data model is almost instant, but doing the same to a more complex model can take up to 30 seconds, just for the UI to respond before being able to type in the formula. Frustrating! It’s even more frustrating if you accidentally click New Measure instead of New Column (or vice versa) and have to wait twice. This is a real killer for productivity. Firstly, there’s the obvious wait time, but it also kills the report developers train of thought. It’s not hard to find a distraction while waiting on the dreaded “Working on it” dialogue for 30+ seconds.
It’s clearly running some sort of integrity checks before allowing any input. It would be much better if it allowed the developer to start typing the Measure / Column formula and continued to process these checks in the background. I’d much prefer to wait after having entered my formula than before. - Allow simple math formula’s in the visualisation properties. I know this sounds like an odd one, but hear me out. I dabble in a small amount of graphic design – not for work, but for some personal projects and have often used Inkscape. In Inkscape, if I want to resize an element to 1/3 of it’s current size, I can simply go into the width setting and divide it by 3:
In this example, since I have the proportion button locked, it’s also automatically resized the height as well. Wouldn’t it be great if I could place a visual on the page and divide the dimensions by 4 knowing I can fit 4 evenly sized visuals on the page?
This would also be handy when trying to make space to fit other visuals / slicers on the page. It would be so much easier to go to the vertical property and add +100 to move a slicer down by 100 pixels. - Dynamically Lock Movement Vertically or Horizontally. While we’re on the subject of moving visuals around. Sometimes I just need to move a slicer (or multiple slicers) down 100 pixels so that I can squeeze in an additional slicer. While we are able to snap align it to existing visuals, it’s not always accurate – especially on more complex report pages. It would make it so much easier to hit the Y key on the keyboard while I’m dragging a visual lock movement in the vertical direction (Y-axis), or X for horizontal movement. Many graphic design tools allow for this.
- Adjustable Guides. This is another one I’m pulling from Inkscape – but really also just about every other graphic design tool as well. In Inkscape I can drag the rulers down the page to create adjustable guides that I can align visual elements to.
If we had this in Power BI it would mean being able to position elements on the screen consistently on every page. Yes we currently have the ability to snap to grid and align to existing visuals, but it is a bit haphazard in it’s current implementation. While we’re at it, I want rulers too! - Numeric column resizing. This is a really frustrating one. Why can’t I set the column width in a table or matrix numerically? Instead I need to manually drag columns and manually eyeball it to make sure my columns are the same width – they never are!
Add my simple math formula suggestion from above to take this to then next level! - Remembering the drill level when changing field parameters. I’ve spoken about this previously in several blog posts. It really feels like the developers got about 90% through when developing field parameters, before slapping the bonnet shut and declaring, “That’ll do!”. Sure, I have a hack that can work around this, but I shouldn’t need to and it’s not 100% fool proof.
To be fair to the developers, I suspect that implementing this would mean updating the code on every visual to support remembering the current drill level, rather than simply updating the core field parameters code and this would be a huge effort. But if it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing right! - Duplicate bookmarks along with pages. One of the first things I do whenever I start a Power BI project with a new client, is to create templates to make sure that all of my reports have the same look and feel. Having this consistency also helps with the user experience for report consumers, because no matter what report they are looking at, they know the key elements will be in the same place. As a part of these templates I typically have help and info panes that I show / hide with the help of bookmarks.
Whenever I duplicate a page from the template to start on a new report page, I need to manually recreate these bookmarks. Every! Single! Time! Why aren’t the bookmarks duplicated with the page? - Better templates. Power BI Templates are a fantastic way to keep the look and feel consistent across reports, but the current implementation hasn’t been fully thought through. The implementation is heavily based on the way a Word document template works and does not consider that Power BI is more of a development tool.
When I create a new report from a template, what I’m presented with is essentially a completed report that I rename and start adding visuals to. If I want to add a new page, I need to duplicate and existing page and modify it appropriately.
What I would expect from a Power BI template is more akin to a document template library. I would much prefer to be prompted when I go into a new Power BI template for what kind of page I would like to build from a library of predefined template pages that I have crafted. Adding an additional page could then be done from a menu selection, rather than duplicating an existing page.
While Power BI is a wonderful tool for data visualization and analysis, there are several usability features that could significantly enhance the user experience. From improving performance when adding measures or columns to incorporating adjustable guides and numeric column resizing, these enhancements would streamline workflows and boost productivity. Implementing better templates and remembering drill levels when changing field parameters would also contribute to a more seamless and efficient reporting process.
I’d love to hear your thoughts! What other useability enhancements could be made to improve the report development process?
