Microsoft Power BI Card – How to use

In this Power BI Tutorial, we will learn about Power BI Card visual. Also, we will discuss these topics:

  • Power BI Card visual
  • How to create Power BI Card visual on Power BI Desktop
  • Power BI Card Format
  • Power BI card conditional formatting
  • Power BI card browser
  • Power BI card tooltip
  • Power BI card number format
  • Power BI card drill through

Power BI Card

A Power BI Card visual can be created and displayed in both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service. Sometimes a single number is the most important thing that we need to track in our Power BI Report or Dashboard.

For Example, total profits, total quantity, total sales over a year, etc. This kind of visualization is known as Card visualization.

A Power BI card is useful to show a single number or metric value of number, date, text. Likewise, with the greater part of the native Power BI visualization, Cards can be created using the report editor or Q&A.

Here is an example of a Power BI Card visual which displaying the total amount of the Product’s sale price:

Power BI card visual
Power BI card visual

The above chart is showing the total sale price of the product in a single number.

Create Power BI Card visual on Power BI Desktop

Now we will see how to create a card visual on Power BI Desktop with various examples.

Example-1: Create a card visual using Sample data

Step-1:

On Power BI Desktop, load the sample data using the get data option.

Step-2:

On the Report page, select Power BI Card chart under the visualizations panel. Then drag any numerical column to the data field of the chart.

For example, here we will use Profit as the data field of the card visual. Then the chart will look like this:

Create Power BI Card visual on Power BI Desktop
How to Create Power BI Card visual on Power BI Desktop

We can see the total profit is showing in a single value on the Power BI Card chart.

This is how to create Power BI Card visual on Power BI Desktop.

Read Power Bi count function

Example-2: Create a card visual from Q&A question box

Step-1:

To create a Q&A question box, do double-click on the blank Power BI report page. It will create a Q&A visual having some related questions to the sample data like below:

Power BI Card from Q&A question box
Power BI Card from Q&A question box

The question box helps us with suggestions and restatement and finally displays the total number in a Card format.

Step-2:

Let’s select the total sale price. It will appear as a card visual:

Power BI Card from Q&A
Power BI Card from Q&A

Now we have successfully created a Card visual from the Q&A question box.

This is another approach to create a Card visual on Power BI Desktop.

Power BI Card Format

We can do format on Power BI Card visual, to make it more attractive on Power BI Reports or dashboard. Formatting Power BI card includes changing the category label colors, enabling card title, background colors, borders, shadow, text format, etc.

Here we will see how to format a card visual on Power BI with different examples. To demonstrate the Card formatting options, we are going to use the Card that we created earlier.

We can see the formatting options for Card visual by clicking on the Format pane (the paint roller icon).

Power BI Card Formatting options
Power BI Card Formatting options
  • General- Here qwe can format the X and Y position, height and width of the card chart.
  • Data label- Here the data label is the numeric value that visualize in the card. In this format we can customize the color of the data label(i.e. black to Purple), display units(auto to thousand), text size(45 pt to 40 pt), Font family(DIN to Times New Roman).
Power BI Card data label format
Power BI Card data label format
  • Category- Here we can show or hide the category label(i.e. column name that we used in the card) by using category toggle. Also, we can change the color of the category to orange, Text size (12 pt to 20 pt), Font family to calibri.
  • Title- By toggling the Title option from off to on, we can show or hide the title of the card. We can give a title to the card(ex- Total Profit), Font color to blue, background color to gray, alignment to center, text size to 17 pt, Font family to Arial black.
Power BI Card Format
Power BI Card Format
  • Background– Here we can add a background color to the card by toggling to on. We can add some random color from the color chart(i.e. white to ) and make it transparence(i.e. 75%).
  • Border– We can give a color border and resize it’s radius to the card visual.
  • Shadow- By toggling the shadow format option, we can give shadow to the visual. Also, we can customize the shadow option and preset.

Now, we will see after formatting the Power BI Card visual looks like below:

Power BI Card Format
Power BI Card Format

This is how to do Power BI Card Format.

Power BI card conditional formatting

In Power BI Card, we can do conditional formatting on the Card’s data label, title text, font color, and background color of the Card’s title.

Now we will see how to do formatting by applying conditions with examples:

Example-1: Conditional formatting on Power BI Card’s title (font color & background color)

Step-1:

Create a Power BI Slicer having the same data field which we are going to use in Power BI Card. For example, here we will take Discount as a data field in both Power BI Card and Slicer.

Power BI card conditional formatting
Power BI card conditional formatting

Step-2:

Select the Card visual, go to Format > turn the Title toggle. Here we can see the conditional formatting options.

Power BI card conditional formatting

Power BI card conditional formatting

Here we give a title to the Card. We can see 3 function symbols “fx, which stands for conditional formatting on the title of the text, font color, and background color.

Step-3:

Click on the conditional formatting function “fx” of the font color. It will redirect to a page, where we will put conditions like this:

Power BI card conditional formatting
Power BI card conditional formatting

Then click on Ok. Now we can see the formatting of font color according to the conditions that we applied.

Power BI card conditional formatting
Power BI card conditional formatting

If we will do conditional formatting of the background then, it will format on the title’s background.

Example-2: Conditional formatting on Power BI Data label

Similarly, click on the conditional formatting symbol of the data label on the formatting pane. It will redirect to a page, where we will put conditions like this:

Power BI card conditional formatting
Power BI card conditional formatting

Now we can see the background color changes according to the value that we applied on Conditional formatting like below:

Power BI Card conditional formatting Data label
Power BI Card conditional formatting Data label

Example-3: Conditional formatting on Power BI Card’s background

Unlike Title text format and data label format, click on the conditional formatting function “fx” of the background. It will redirect to a page, where we will put conditions like this:

Power BI card conditional formatting
Power BI card conditional formatting

Now we can see our card visual is formatted according to the conditions. The visual will change its background color like this:

Power BI Card conditional formatting Background
Power BI Card conditional formatting Background

Power BI card browser

A Power BI Card browser is a document set viewer featuring flippable, double-sided thumbnails for natural navigation of media collections.

By default, this is not available on Power BI visual. So we have to download this visual from the Microsoft app source.

Click on the three dots(…) > Get more visual > App source > search card browser > Add.

Power BI card browser
Power BI card browser

Power BI card tooltip

In Power BI, tooltips provide more contextual information and the details to the data points on a visual. When visualization is created, the default tooltip displays the data points and category.

We can customize the tooltip on Power BI Desktop and Service. Now we will see how to customize the tooltip on Power BI Card visual.

For implementing this, we are going to use the Card visual that we created previously.

Step-1:

Go to Format pane > Tooltip.

Power BI card tooltip
Power BI card tooltip

We can the customization options by toggling the tooltip from off to on.

Step-2:

Let’s customize the Label text color to blue, Value text color to light yellow, text size to 12 pt, background color to black:

Power BI card tooltip
Power BI card tooltip

This is how to do customize a Power BI card tooltip.

Power BI Card number format

In Power BI Card, it allows formatting the number that is displayed. By formatting, we can show the accurate number on Power BI Card visual.

Here we will see how to format numbers on Power BI Card:

  • Go to format > Data label > Display unit
Power BI card number format
Power BI card number format

Step-2:

If we change the display units from Auto to None, then it will show the accurate number on the Card:

Power BI card number format
Power BI card number format

This is how to do Power BI card number format. Similarly, we can format the display units to thousand, million, trillion, etc.

Power BI card drill through

In Power BI drill through allows users to further explore related data by clicking on a visualization.

There is an option to do drill through on the Power BI Card:

Power BI card drill through
Power BI card drill through

For example, we will use Product and country as drill-through fields here.

Power BI card drill through
Power BI card drill through

The above chart showing the total profit of the products (i.e. Amarilla, Carretera) with the respective country(i.e. Canada) that we selected.

This is how to do Power BI card drill through.

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Conclusion

From this Power BI Tutorial, we learned all about Power BI Card visual. Also, we learned these topics:

  • What is Power BI Card visual and how to create this visual on Power BI Desktop with various examples?
  • How to format on Power BI Card visual?
  • How to do conditional formatting on Power BI Card with various approches?
  • What is tooltip and how to set a tooltip on Card?
  • How to do number format on Card visual?
  • What is drill-through on Power BI Card?
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