For day 2 of dashboard week, we were tasked with recreating a Tableau viz in Power BI. Having only spent a day learning Power BI prior to today, I anticipated a challenge. I recreated a viz by Carl Allchin (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/carl.allchin/viz/QuokkaAnalysis/QuokkaTrends) after being inspired by the copious images of Quokkas smiling across the dashboard - and of course the varied charts types that I hadn’t attempted making in Power BI before.
Pros:
I love the interface for making a ‘percent of total’ chart (called a 100% Stacked bar chart in PBI) – the layout makes it so simple to create the chart without the need for table calculations.
It’s easy to make a report tooltip which essentially gives you a viz in tooltip in Tableau terminology. This is the method required to include fields not used in a chart in the tooltip of that chart.
The custom chart I required – a lipstick chart – was very easy to use. There was very helpful guidance online on how to configure it too – the only drawback was that I would need a licnece to publish that chart online.
Cons:
Definitely less flexible than tableau in terms of presentation. Formatting titles and textboxes is not as fleixbile as it is in Tableau, for example including text of different fonts and sizes in one title or textbox is not possible. Using the subtitle option is a slight workaround but wouldn’t work for every case.
It would certainly be helpful if there was a dual axis option in Power BI, in order to make a variety of charts easier to create and not require installing custom charts.
I wasn’t able to find a way to use conditional formatting on the line within a Line and Clustered Column Chart. If there is a way to do this, its definitely awkward to find and a solution is not readily available online.
All in all, I really enjoy using PBI and look forward to further exploring its capabilities in future projects.
