Power BI has long been a go-to tool for data professionals looking to create insightful visualizations. By introducing the new card visual in Power BI Desktop, Microsoft is redefining how we present key metrics and performance indicators. This article explores the exciting new features and functionalities of the new card visual, which promises to enhance your reports’ aesthetics and usability.
Why the New Card Visual Matters?
The card visual is a staple in reporting for displaying critical data points like total sales or profit growth. However, users have often found the traditional card visual limiting, leading them to rely on multiple visual elements or custom visuals that can impact performance and accessibility. The new card visually addresses these challenges by offering a more flexible, efficient, and visually appealing way to present data.
Important Note: The new card visualization is currently in the preview phase and is exclusively available in Power BI Desktop. As this pertains to a prerelease product, significant modifications may occur before the final release. Microsoft does not provide any warranties, expressed or implied, regarding the information presented here.
Key Features, Limitations, and Configuration Tips of the New Card Visual:
- Multiple Cards in a Single Container: The new card visual allows users to display multiple metrics within a single container. This feature enhances report performance by reducing the need for overlapping visuals and improves accessibility for users.
- Enhanced Formatting Options: With the new card visual, you have unprecedented control over the appearance of each card. Users can customize font types, sizes, colors, and transparency, providing more precision in how data is presented. Additionally, the ability to format values and labels with conditional settings adds a layer of sophistication to your visuals.
- Dynamic Layouts and Design Flexibility: Choose from layout options with 3 arrangements—single column, single row, and grid—to best suit your reporting needs. Fine-tune the appearance with settings for padding, spacing, and text alignment, or add an accent bar and images to elevate your design.
- Development and Replacement: The new card visual is being continuously developed and updated across several releases. Once it is done, it will replace the existing Card, Multi-row Card, and KPI Card visuals. However, reports that still utilize these older visuals will continue to be supported.
- Settings Configuration: Specific settings will only take effect if the “Apply settings to” option is set to “All,” while other settings can only be adjusted by selecting an independent measure series.
- Reference Labels for Added Context: Reference labels are a new feature that lets you add custom labels to cards, providing additional information and comparisons. This feature is ideal for highlighting key metrics, benchmarks, and goals, making your reports more informative and actionable.
- Design Considerations: Due to design, the shadow and glow effects may cause unexpected changes in the size of all cards.
- Interactions and Filters: Interactions and filters within this visual affect all cards inside the container.
- Pinning and Dashboard Integration: Individual cards cannot be pinned to a dashboard. Instead, all cards in the new card visual are pinned together.
- Performance Impact: There is no limit to the number of cards that can be added to the new card visual. However, adding a large number of cards may lead to increased latency and slower data loading in the report.
- Scrolling and Pagination: The new card visual does not currently support scrolling or pagination. Consequently, if the container is small and multiple cards are added, they may be displayed at a reduced size.
- Preview Feature Management: The new card visual is a preview feature that is enabled by default. To disable the preview or manage its visibility:
Go to Options in the Fabric Admin settings,
select Preview features, and
turn off the New Card visual option
This change will not affect existing card visuals
Prerequisites: To share your report with a colleague using Power BI, both users need to have individual Power BI Pro licenses, or the report must be saved in Premium capacity. The card visual is only available in Power BI Desktop and is not supported in the Power BI service.
Building and Formatting a New Card Visualization:
Getting Started: To begin using the new card visual, open Power BI Desktop. Here’s a step-by-step guide to building and formatting your new card visual:
Create a New Card:
–On the right side, select Build Panel, then select Card (new) visual icon.
-Add fields or measures from the Data pane, such as “Total Sales Price” and “Total Profit”.
Format The Card:
-Open the formatting pane by either selecting the paintbrush icon or selecting the format option on the right side ribbon.
-To make all the changes in all cards at once, click on Callout values and then go to Apply settings. Then click on All series.
-Now, do the customizations like Font size, font color, and transparency.
Customize a Single Card Value:
-To do the customizations of a single card value, under apply settings, select any one series which you want to change the appearance. Follow the below steps to do the customizations:
>Select Total Profit under the Apply settings option.
>Select Font as Segoe UI Semibold.
>Change the color to Green.
>Horizontal alignment to Right.
>Value decimal places as 0.
Format The Labels:
– Expand the Label section to adjust Font, Colour, and Position, Space between labels and value, Text wrap, and Match value alignment. Follow the below steps to customize the label for all the series:
>Font to Segoe UI Bold.
>Size to 18.
>Change Colour to Dark Violet.
>Select Position as Below Value.
>Change the Space between the label and value to 12 px.
>Off the Text Wrap.
>On the Match value alignment.
>On the Align baselines option.
Important Note: The Align baselines option will only work when All series is selected, not for individual series.
Set the Layout: There is a Layout option below Title in the Format pane. Here, now let’s change it to Single column. Then the card layout changes from left image to right image layout.
Format The Vertical alignment: Under the Label option, expand the Layout and change the vertical alignment to the Bottom.
–Callout size will be off when no Reference label is used.
Format All Cards at Once:
To format all the cards simultaneously, follow the below steps:-
-Expand the Cards section.
-In the Apply settings to dropdown, choose All from the Series options.
-Adjust the following settings:
>Expand the Shape section and select “Snipped tab, both top” for the shape, Size of the top snips to 20 px, and Size of the bottom snips to 10 px.
>Change the Background color to dark blue.
>Set Transparency to 85%.
>Enable the Border toggle, change the Colour to dark blue, and set the Width to 4 px.
>Disable the Shadow, Glow, and Accent bar options.
The output for the above formatting is:
Customizing a Single Card:
If you need to format just one card within your visual, follow these steps:
Ensure the Cards section is expanded.
In the Apply settings dropdown, select the Total Profit series.
-Enable the Background, expand the Background option and then adjust the following settings:
>Set the Background Colour to lime green.
>Adjust the Transparency to 85%.
-Enable the Border and follow the below settings:
>Expand the Border section.
>Set the Border Colour to green.
>Adjust the Border Width to 2 px.
>Set the Transparency to 0%.
Adding Reference Labels to New Cards:
Reference labels are a new feature designed to enhance your card visuals by providing custom labels. These labels help display additional insights, and comparisons and highlight key metrics, benchmarks, or goals. Follow the steps below to use reference labels effectively:
To add reference labels,
>Select the visual you wish to edit and click the edit icon.
>Next, go to the Format panel on the right side.
>Expand the Reference labels section.
>From the Select series dropdown, choose the Total Sale Price card.
>In the Add label field, pick a data field or measure for your reference label. Here, in my case, I used Sales YTD, Sales PY, and Count of Product ID for reference.
Reference labels consist of three customizable elements:
- Title: Displays the name of the data field.
- Value: Shows the associated data value.
- Detail: Provides additional context from a single data field. Each of these can be fully customized, including the font, color, and transparency.
To customize reference labels across all series, set Apply settings to Series All. To customize the field titles in the Reference section, enable the Title toggle and expand the Title section: - Set the font to Segoe UI Semibold
- Adjust the size to 12
- Change the color to orange
- transparency to 0%
To customize the values, enable the Value toggle and expand the Value section:
- Set the font to Segoe UI Bold
- Adjust the size to 12
- Change the color to orange
- transparency to 0%
To add details to a specific series in the reference section, follow these steps:
- Select the series: In this example, select Total Sale Price.
- Choose the label: Select the label for which you want to add details, such as Sales PY.
- Go to the Details section, enable it, and expand the section.
- Add the desired field, like YOY Sales% to the data section.
Format the text:
- Set the font to Segoe UI Semibold.
- Adjust the font size to 15.
- Change the font color to orange.
- Set the fill color to light orange.
- Transparency to 50%
To adjust the title of a field added in the reference section, follow these steps:
- Choose the series you want to modify, such as Total Sale Price.
- Select the specific label within the series, like Count Of Product ID.
- Navigate to the Title section and enable it.
- In the Content, dropdown select the Custom option.
- In the Text field, enter the desired new title for the field. For example, change “Count Of Product ID” to “Products Sold-”.
Repeat these steps if you need to change the titles of other fields in the reference section.
To align the reference values, follow these steps:
- Choose All Series in the reference section.
- Navigate to the Layout section.
- Choose layout options:
– If you want the fields to be arranged in Rows or Columns, choose based on the requirement.
– Select the desired style, such as Sentence or Tabular.
– Adjust the horizontal position of the fields (e.g., Left, Center, Right).
– Adjust the vertical position of the fields (e.g., Top, Middle, Bottom)
To enhance the visual appeal and organization of your reference labels, consider these options:
- Background Colour: Change the background color of the labels for better differentiation.
- Image: Incorporate a relevant image to add visual interest and context.
- Accent Bar: Use a colored bar to emphasize specific labels.
- Themes: Apply predefined themes to quickly change the overall appearance and formatting of your reference labels, including colors, fonts, and styles.
By utilizing these features, you can create visually engaging and informative reference labels that complement your overall presentation. To enable background color and adjust its settings:
- Activate the Background toggle and expand it to view its options.
- Set Green as the background color.
- Adjust the transparency to 85%
The above steps are applied to the Total Sale Price Series. Similar steps are to be applied for the other series based on the requirement.
- To add an accent bar to the selected series:
- Choose the Total Profit series.
- Enable the Accent Bar toggle and expand it to view its options.
- Select Right from the Position dropdown.
- Set Green as the accent bar color.
- Set the transparency to 0%.
- Specify a width of 22 px for the accent bar.
Elevate your design by incorporating an image. Personalize the appearance of your visuals with ease using the versatile feature, which allows you to define and apply various formatting settings. To enhance the visual appeal of your card by adding an image to the Total Sale Price series:
- Navigate to the Images section and expand it to view the image options.
- Choose the Total Sale Price series to which you want to add an image.
- Activate the Image option and expand the section.
- Decide whether to upload an image from your desktop or paste an image URL. Based on the requirement, select the image type.
- Adjust the transparency to 0% for a solid, non-transparent image.
- Select the Right of the text as the image position (adjust as needed).
- Set the vertical alignment of the image according to your preference.
- Set the space between the image and callout to 0 pixels for a tight integration.
- Adjust the fixed size of the image for optimal appearance.
- Specify an image area size of 30% to control the image’s relative size within the card.
Additional Features:
Interactive Features: Advanced Tooltip Customization
To enhance your new card visual, you can assign report page tooltips to individual cards. The new card visual supports both default and report page tooltips. To add these tooltips, follow these steps:
- Create your tooltip page:
- Open a new page and assign it a name of your choice.
- After that, add the visual you want to display as a tooltip on the new card visual.
- Navigate to the Format pane on the right, then expand the Page Information section.
- Set the Page Type to Tooltip.
- Under Show tooltip add the desired field for which you want the tooltip to appear.
- Similarly, you can create additional tooltip pages and configure them for other fields.
- For example, I created a tooltip page named Sales Tooltip for the Total Sales Price field and another named Profit Tooltip for the Total Profit field.
2. Link it to the desired field:
- Go back to the page with your new card visual.
- Click on the card visual to select it.
- Open the Format pane go to Properties > Options and expand for more options.
- In the Type section, select the Report page.
- Under the Page section, choose Auto.
Drill Through:
To enable navigation between pages and provide deeper insights on specific fields using the Drill Through feature, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the page you want to drill through from the card visual.
- Open the General format settings and expand the Page Information section.
- Select Drill Through under the Page type section under the Drill through from option, and add the fields that will allow navigation to another page for deeper analysis of all the fields you want to use for navigation into the field well.
Now, once you assign a Drill Through field to other pages, all cards linked to that field can navigate to those pages. To do this: - Return to the New Card Visual page and locate the fields you used for Drill Through. In my case, I assigned it to both Total Sale Price and Total Profit.
- Right-click on the card that has the designated Drill through a field.
- From the menu, choose the page name under the Drill through option.
- This enables you to quickly access detailed information across multiple pages, allowing for deeper analysis and more comprehensive insights.
As shown in the above image, the deep dive page (Sales) confirms that the Drill Through feature has been successfully activated.
| Feature | Traditional Card | New Card |
| Multiple Cards in a Container | No | Yes |
| Enhanced Formatting Options | Limited | Extensive (font, colour, transparency, conditional formatting) |
| Dynamic Layouts | Fixed | Single column, single row, grid |
| Reference Labels | No | Yes (for additional context) |
| Design Flexibility | Limited | More options (padding, spacing, accent bar, images) |
| Performance | Can be slower with multiple cards | Generally better performance due to optimization |
| Accessibility | May be limited with multiple cards | Improved accessibility with clear layout and formatting |
| Shadow and Glow Effects | Available | May cause unexpected layout changes |
| Interactions and Filters | Applied individually | Applied to all cards in the container |
| Pinning and Dashboard Integration | Can be pinned individually | Only the entire container can be pinned |
| Scrolling and Pagination | Supported | Not currently supported |
| Preview Feature | Not available | Enabled by default (can be disabled) |
Summary & Conclusion:
The new card visual in Power BI offers several key features:
- Improved aesthetics and functionality: The new visual provides enhanced formatting options, dynamic layouts, and reference labels, allowing for more informative and engaging reports.
- Enhanced performance: The new card visual consolidates multiple cards, reduces data queries, and optimizes rendering, leading to faster loading times and improved responsiveness.
- Enhanced Readability: By carefully formatting cards, users can enhance the readability and accessibility of their reports. This can help to ensure that the data is presented clearly and understandably, even for users with visual impairments.
- Versatility: The new visual can be used to display a wide range of metrics and KPIs, making it a versatile tool for data visualization.
However, there are some limitations to consider:
- Shadow and glow effects: While these effects can enhance the visual appeal of cards, they can also introduce inconsistencies in sizing, potentially leading to unexpected layout changes.
- Interactions and filters: When applying interactions or filters to a new card visual, the changes will be applied to all cards within the container.
- Pinning and dashboard integration: Unlike traditional card visuals, you cannot pin individual cards from the new card visual to a dashboard. Only the entire container can be pinned.
- Performance impact: While the new card visual is designed to be efficient, adding large number of cards can increase the processing load, potentially leading to slower loading times or decreased interactivity.
- Scrolling and pagination: If a report contains too many cards to fit within the available space, users may need to manually adjust the size of the container or consider alternative visualization techniques.
Despite these limitations, the new card visual is a valuable tool for data professionals looking to create informative and engaging reports. As Microsoft continues to develop and improve this visual, we can expect to see even more features and capabilities in the future.
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Author: Chanakya VCR