Power BI Q&A Visualization

A few days ago, I designed a Power BI report for one of our clients using their Product Sales data. In that report, I included various types of visualizations that define the sales percentage by product, category, and quantity.

The client requested that we add a search-like feature to the Power BI report, allowing users to ask questions in natural language about the report’s data and receive answers to those questions.

For that, I added a visual named ‘Q&A’ to the Power BI report. You can also see the report below:

In this tutorial, I will guide you through the ‘Power BI Q & A’ visual. Also, I will discuss the points mentioned below:

• How to enable the Q&A option in Power BI Desktop
• Components of Power BI Q&A Visual
• Add a Q&A visual to the Power BI Report
• Convert the Q&A visual into a Standard Visual Power BI
• Power BI Q&A Visual Advanced features
• Power BI Q&A limitations

What is Power BI Q&A?

The Q&A visual will enable users to ask natural language questions by typing in the search box and receive answers in a visual format. By default, Power BI selects the suitable visual.

This can be used to retrieve answers from the Power BI report quickly.

Users can utilize the Q&A visual to ask questions about the data in the report and view answers in the form of charts and graphs.

Enable Q&A Feature in Power BI Desktop

In Power BI Desktop, the Q&A feature is enabled by default. If you cannot find the Q&A feature in the visualizations pane, follow the steps below.

1. On the Power BI report view, click on the File option on the menu bar.
2. Then, it will open another window; click Options and settings, then select Options.

3. On the Options section, go to ‘Data Load‘. In the window, you can see that the checkbox is selected for the Q&A option. Click on Ok.

Note

To disable the Q&A functionality, uncheck the box and click the OK button.

Power BI Q&A Visual Components

This visual consists of 4 components, as you can see below:

1. Q&A Question Field: Users can enter the questions in this box and see possible answers and suggestions from Power BI.
2. Suggestions: It will display the suggestion questions, where the user can select a prepopulated list of suggestions generated by Power BI.
3. Convert icon: Click on this icon to convert the Q&A visual into a standard visual.
4. Gear or Settings icon: Select this icon to open the Power BI Q&A tooling, which allows designers to configure the underlying natural language engine.

Create Q&A Visual in Power BI Report

Here, I will demonstrate two different methods for creating a Power BI Q&A visual in Power BI Desktop using sample data.

• Add Q&A using a suggested question in Power BI
• Create a Q&A visual in Power BI using Natural Query Language

Add Power BI Q&A Visual using Suggested Question

Let’s follow the steps below to add a Q&A visual to a Power BI report and create a suggested question to add a custom Q&A visual.

Note

You can also double-click anywhere on the Power BI report to add Q&A visual and use natural language to get started with the visual.

Below, you can see that I have a Power BI report related to ‘Product Sales’ with various types of visualizations, including treemap, column chart, funnel, and donut chart.

Within this report, I have included a Q&A visual to facilitate quick access to the report data.

1. Open your Power BI desktop, then load the data using the Get Data feature.
2. Select the Q&A visual from the visualizations pane.
3. Then, a new Q&A visual will be added, displaying multiple Q&A suggestions based on the information in your Power BI report.

4. From the displayed suggestions, select a suggested question or enter the text in the Q&A question field. In my case, I have chosen ‘Show products and ship dates’.

5. Then, Power BI determines the appropriate visual type based on the selected suggested question. For my case, it picked ‘Clustered bar chart‘, which is best suited to display the data.

6. Let’s change the bar chart visualization into a Table. To change the visualization to a ‘Table’ visual, add a ‘table’ at the end of the text.

7. After that, you can see that the visual has been changed according to the text we provided. See the Table visual below.

Create a Q&A visual in Power BI using Natural Query Language

In this section, let’s see how to create a Q&A visual in Power BI by entering text or a question in the box.

As you enter a question in the box, Power BI will assist you by showing suggestions and providing text feedback.

1. In the blank Power BI report, select the Power BI Q&A visual from the visualization pane. The visual will be added to the Power BI report.
2. Now, in the Question box, start typing the question. If Power BI cannot recognize the words, it will add a red underline to the word.
3. Then, you can select a suggestion displayed by Power BI or ask the question in a way that Power BI understands. Here, I wanted to search the [Profit of Printer product by subcategory].

4. You can see that the Q&A will display the result in the form of a ‘Card‘ visual.

5. After that, enter more text for the current question. When it doesn’t understand the question, it will suggest the terms present in the Power BI data source. The suggested terms are underlined in blue.

6. Then, you can view the result from the above question in a ‘Line chart’, as shown below.

This way, you can add a Q&A visual to a Power BI report.

Convert Q&A Visual into Standard Visual in Power BI

Here, let’s see how to convert the Q&A visual into a standard visual using the convert option in Power BI.

From the above sections, you might get to know how to add a Q&A visual to a Power BI report.

1. On the top right of the Q&A visual, select the convert icon. This will turn the Q&A result into a standard visual.

2. Next, select the converted visual. When you click the values inside the visual, it will show changes in the Power BI report. The standard visual is ‘Table‘, not a Q&A visual.

Note:

After Power BI completes the conversion, the visual is no longer a Q&A visual. In the report, the new visual behaves as same as other standard visual.

Power BI Q&A Visual Advanced Features

In this section, I will demonstrate some of the advanced features available in the Power BI Q&A visual.

1. To access the advanced features, click the settings icon (gear icon) in Q&A Visual Power BI.

2. This opens the Tooling pane, where you can add the terms that Q&A doesn’t recognize.
3. Also, you can manage suggested questions for these datasets and review questions that users asked in the Q&A visual.

Power BI Q&A Visual Limitations

Here, I will mention some of the limitations related to the Power BI Q&A visual.

• Data sources limitations
• Tooling limitations
• Review question limitations
• Teach Q&A limitations

Data source limitations in the Power BI Q&A Visual:

1. Power BI object-level security is not supported with any data source.
2. The Power BI composite models are not supported

Tooling Limitations in Power BI Q&A Visual:

The new tooling dialog in Q&A does not allow users to customize.

Review Question Limitations Power BI Q&A Visual:

The review question only stores questions asked against your Power BI data model for up to 28 days.

Teach Q&A Limitations in Power BI Q&A Visual:

Currently, the Q&A doesn’t support redefining a recognized term or defining other types of conditions or phases.

When creating the Q&A visual in Power BI, keep in mind that the Q&A visual will integrate with Microsoft Office and Bing to attempt to match unrecognized common words that are present in the data model of the Power BI report.

Also, you can read other Power BI tutorials:

• Power BI Bar Chart
• Create a Power BI Pie Chart
• Create Ribbon Chart in Power BI
• Create a Clustered Bar Chart in Power BI

Bijay Kumar

After working for more than 18 years in Microsoft technologies like SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI), I thought will share my SharePoint expertise knowledge with the world. Our audiences are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. For my expertise knowledge and SharePoint tutorials, Microsoft has been awarded a Microsoft SharePoint MVP (12 times). I have also worked in companies like HP, TCS, KPIT, etc.