Here is my entry for this challenge. Full write up will follow in the following days, since this is a holiday weekend for us in the States. I do want to point out that I took a slightly different approach to this challenge. From the Customers table, I only chose “Individual”, not “Company”. Therefore, my numbers will be slightly different than other entries.
Thanks for the shout out @Neba, but all the pattern posts are a collaborative effort of the expert group and the eDNA team (and most often to follow-on forum posts), so thanks to all.
Greg
I started out on this challenge with more of an experimental sandbox mindframe, and never quite made it to a fully prepared report submission, but there were many areas I wanted to explore, which are below the “liked” notes:
What I liked:
Using PowerPoint for all backgrounds
Using the “Top N and Others” technique for pie and doughnut charts
I really like pie charts and doughnut charts, as I find them very useful and easy to communicate relative size, but they can be less useful (more overwhelmed) when there are too many “slices”. I looked for and found a great technique to limit the number of slices, by only displaying slices for the Top N categories, then a single “others” slice with all those outside the Top N
I am excited to use this technique in the future with bar charts too, as I think it will be terrifically insightful to not only see who my Top N are, but also how far they are ahead of the average of others (and conversely how far behind average my bottom N are)
Using simple back and forward images with “bounce” for navigation
Using familiar back and forward chevrons, reminiscent of browser buttons or the “swipe” icons in Windows Photos
What needs more attention/what I didn’t like:
The red abstract background and theme that I chose; I had used muted blue, muted green, and white backgrounds in previous challenge submissions, and wanted to see if I could make a more garish colour and background work, so I chose a bright red abstract background. This was generally midly OK, but I the colour palette I chose didn’t provide enough differentiation, and I chose a couple of complementary colours, which (alas) didn’t work well at all, but did provide differentiation.
I think that, after my experience, that I’m leaning towards using simpler backgrounds in my reports, for a couple of reasons:
I end up spending too much time on colour selection
I’m too concerned with how the visuals look within the theme rather than concentrating only on how well they display the data so useful insights can be extracted
Here’s a more detailed list of some of the techniques I used in my report:
NOTES:
Goals:
to gain experience using PowerPoint for all backgrounds, including header, footer, and visual backgrounds
to gain experience using image buttons
to gain experience using the Decomposition Tree AI visual
to gain experience with the DAX Studio and Tabular Editor external tools by using them as much as possible for measure development
Setup:
used internet search to find a red abstract background image
used PowerPoint to create left-to-right gradient semi-transparent rectangles in a dark complementary colour for header, footer, and body rectangles, to provide the canvas for transparent visualizations
used filter pane to limit records shown in the report to those with Dates[Is After Today] = FALSE
setup navigation image buttons and images using arrow icons sourced from iconsdb.com (arrow 24, arrow 88) in #FFFFFF, #BFBFBF, #000000 for disabled, default, and on hover
General:
used “Work” pages to try out different visuals and identify trends that were interesting and should be included in the main report pages
made extensive use of the [General] section in the [Visualizations] pane to ensure consistent sizing of all visual elements and adjusted the X/X/Width/Height as necessary (I made everything multiples of 10 pixels [where possible] to help me keep things aligned)
changed all date formats to dd-mmm-yyyy [by typing “dd-mmm-yyyy” into “Format” box directly]
updated [Dates] table to use the fxStartDate and fxEndDate values (see below)
added all “*_Tbl” tables from Excel file;
renamed fields as necessary (e.g., in [Types] changed [ID] to [Type ID], changed [Description] to [Type] to avoid future confusion)
changed case of “lookup” table columns as necessary to be consistent (used “Transform\Format\Capitalize Each Word”)
corrected reverse naming of Customer[First Name] and Customer[Last Name] columns; created merged column for full name (Customer[Customer])
renamed [Regions] table to [Locations]; renamed [Region ID] fields in [Locations] and [Customers] tables to [Location ID]
deleted all auto-generated relationships
arranged table model in a “waterfall” and used “Manage Relationships” dialog to add all relationships (all 1-to-many)
created empty tables for [Key Measures] and [Admin Measures]; opened 2 sessions of Tabular Editor (1 each on my Challenge #5 PBIX and this file) and copied measures
added [Last Refresh] table
hid all ID fields
added disconnected supporting tables for [Categories plus Others] and [States plus Others]; accepted default of many-to-many relationship offered by Power BI when linking to [Categories] and [States] tables
added [Status Group] to [Status] table, with “Closed” and “Resolved” status values assigned to the “Closed” group, with all others assigned to the “Open” group
M/Power Query:
added fxNow, fxToday [date of fxNow], fxFirstComplaint [min compliant date], fxStartDate [start of year of fxFirstComplaint], fxEndDate [one year after end of year of fxToday]
DAX Calculations:
added [Is Desktop] and [Is Service] using difference between NOW() and UTCNOW() to determine user interface
Visualizations:
Custom Visuals:
used Enlighten Data Story custom visual
used Sunbust by MAQ Software custom visual
General:
used blank buttons in header with separate “default” and “on hover” images, all using “Fill\Image Fit\Fit” for back and forward; used slightly larger copies of the default images to create the “bounce” effect on hover (with “Fit”, larger image appears smaller in same size box)
hid all pages except “Summary” page, so all navigation in Power BI Service would be via back and forward buttons
used multi-row card in footer to display report info
Summary page:
used transparent black “back” image instead of back button to show “start”
added [Periods] slicer to easily display last 2 years
used many instances of the Enlighten Data Story custom visual on the left side of the page to present summary insights
used [Top States plus Others] in doughnut visual ([TopX] set to 5, so will show 5 slices for the Top 5 states plus a 6th slice for “Others” [sum of values outside the Top 5])
used [Top Categories plus Others] in doughnut visual ([TopX] set to 5, so will show 5 slices for the Top 5 categories plus a 6th slice for “Others” [sum of values outside the Top 5])
used multi-row card in the footer to present report admin and session admin measures
Source page:
added [Periods] slicer to easily display last 2 years
used Decomposition Tree to identify breakdown of complaints by source, product category, product subcategory
used conditional formatting to colour 3 groups in the [Complaints by Broker], [Expected Reimbursement by Customer], and [Complaints by Customer] charts: top 20% - dark red; 50-80% - red; bottom 50% - light red
used multi-row card in the footer to present report admin and session admin measures
Time page:
used transparent black “forward” image instead of forward button to show “end”
used Sunbust by MAQ Software custom visual to showcase average processing days by distribution network and distribution channel, complete with animation
used relative date slicer to show only the last 2 years of complaints data in the two graphs on the right; adjusted the filter interactions so that these two graphs would not be affected by the date slicer selections
used multi-row card in the footer to present report admin and session admin measures
@Greg you deserve an award just for explaining in detail the steps and tricks you used in creating the report. I haven’t yet seen the TopN and others technique in donuts and pie charts. Would love to try the technique in other visuals.
I like the red abstract theme you used and you really made the theme work. Only if you could have carried the red theme in all of the visuals it could have been awesome. Blue and green color doesn’t seem to be working in the report.
Lots and lots of tricks to learn from your report.
Thank you for completing the challenge as these types of reports give the motivation to learn more and more.
Totally agree with @MudassirAli in that I think the bright red theme looks awesome, but wish you’d committed to it fully. As always, so many detailed touches to love in this report (I’m 100% stealing that Chevron page navigation construct). One thing I absolutely cannot figure out is how you got the publish to web to default to full-screen with no other on-screen navigation except that which is native to the report itself?
I am in awe of all the wonderful reports in this challenge, I look forward to learning about all your reports. I almost do not do it. It took me more time than I expected. My report is simple I tried to do more complex but with my current knowledge will take longer.
Thanks @MudassirAli. I’m looking forward as well to extending the use of the “TopN and Others” technique. I couldn’t agree more on the theme … I did it all in red at first, but then found it difficult to differentiate, so tried to find (and failed epically) to find nice complementary colours … oh well … perhaps next time. Greg
Thanks @BrianJ. It was my first try with PTW, so not sure … it just happened. The only thing I can guess is that I hid all pages except for the first page; perhaps if PTW only “sees” one visible page? Greg
Loved working through this, I’ve gone all out with my design too really how far you can take Power BI and your UI.
I really wanted to build a full on application this time round. These type of reporting applications are where you can showcased immense value in what you are doing. No other tool compares to the feature set of Power BI in enabling this.
More details to follow how I did a few features here
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