Custom Formats in Power BI

Power BI comes ready loaded with a wide range of format options

But did you know that you are not limited to the pre-defined options

Some organisations have specific standards for things such as date formats, these can be catered for using custom formats

https://www.selectdistinct.co.uk/2023/07/20/custom-formats-in-power-bi/

#powerbi #dataviz #customformats

1. https://www.bensound.com/ (energy) https://www.bensound.com/ Using Custom Formats in Power BI

2. Power BI Tips and Timesavers https://www.bensound.com/ (energy) https://www.bensound.com/ Using Custom Formats in Power BI

3. Power BI comes ready loaded with a wide range of format options But did you know that you are not limited to the pre-defined options Some organisations have specific standards for things such as date formats, these can be catered for using custom formats

4. Custom Formats on Cards Cards are a great way to feature key pieces of information But if you have a need to use a custom format that is not one of the standard formats then its not obvious how to do it Show data as Millions Prefix with a ‘+’ Show as pence

5. Show data as Millions Select the card you need to format On the Visualizations panel  Format Visual  Call out Value Then select the relevant display units

6. Prefix with a Plus (or minus) By default, if the field we want to show on the card is set as a percentage, it looks like this To change the card to look as we want it, we need to go to the model and select a custom format in there By setting the format to +0%; -0% the format will prefix all positives with a plus, the semi colon ; then tells it to apply a different value for negatives It now looks as we need it to

7. Show values as pence If we set the field to be a currency format, in our case GBP then the value is expected to be in £ Earnings per share for example are reported usually in pence (So remember to multiply by 100!) Then we can set a custom format to show p suffix in a similar way, in this example we have not set a negative option By using the format code 0.0p, this sets it to 1 decimal place

8. Custom Format Strings If you are used to setting custom formats in Excel, it is the same type of process The semi colon splits the rules into [Positives];[Negatives];[Zero];[Text Values] In your Power BI desktop, click ‘Learn More’ to read further

9. Custom Format Strings for dates Here is an example for a date format At first, date formats appear to be limited to a few common formats But if we want to use the format dd-mm- yyyy then we need to create it as a custom format On the modelling tab, select the field, then in the properties you can apply this custom format

10. Mastering the array of options that you can apply using custom formats can give you more control over the look and feel of your reporting in Power BI