Advanced Visuals in Power BI – Ep. 363

Welcome back to the Explicit Measures Podcast. In Episode 363, Mike Carlo is joined by Tommy Puglia and Seth Bauer to talk through building more advanced visuals in Power BI and where custom visuals fit into real-world reporting.

News & Announcements

Main Discussion

Advanced visuals are tempting because they can make a report look incredible—but they also come with tradeoffs in performance, governance, and maintainability. This episode discusses when to stay with native visuals, when to reach for custom visuals, and how to keep “cool visuals” from becoming long-term technical debt.

Key points:

• Start with the question: does the visual improve comprehension, or is it just decoration?
• Custom visuals can introduce security/review overhead; prefer certified visuals when possible.
• Performance matters—heavy visuals can slow reports and frustrate users more than they help.
• Reuse patterns (themes, templates, consistent interactions) so visuals feel coherent across reports.
• When you do go advanced, document the choice so future maintainers know what to do (or not do).

Looking Forward

A practical next step is to build a short “approved visuals” list for your team (native + a few certified custom visuals) and standardize how they’re configured. That keeps creativity high without turning every report into a one-off science project.

Episode Transcript

0:22 [Music] out out [Music] good morning and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike good morning everyone good morning gentlemen and a happy Tuesday to you you in feels like these weeks are just clipping by I can’t believe it’s halfway through October already but here we go oh my oh my gosh you got all the Halloween costumes

0:53 gosh you got all the Halloween costumes out there too for the kiddos have exced we have been looking for them we’re not a who usually buys Halloween costumes when I was a kid I did not really celebrate Halloween very much at all orever so I was like Halloween’s just a waste of a holiday like n not a big deal so we never really did anything on Halloween and and my wife’s family did do Halloween but it was always like they had a a couple sets of costumes and they just like reused it’s like everyone has the clown costume so every year one kid was a clown no matter what

1:25 year one kid was a clown no matter what someone had overalls they became a farmer for every year but the kids were like want to go buy these C costumes the inflatable things oh yeah the dinosaur the T-Rex dinosaur the T-Rex dinosaur thing or one year my son bought a little like drummer set with like an inflatable thing these little plastic drumsticks and you would had the drum set all around it was it quite annoying because it was so big and everywhere he ran he was like because the fabric was rubbing against against itself I thought it would be really funny so have you guys ever played or

1:55 funny so have you guys ever played or seen the game it’s the it’s the little robots that run around on the space station and they kill each other oh I know but what’s the name of the game I’m Dr I’m literally dropping the name I can see the characters I can’t remember the name they’re all like different colors all different colors if you’re alone in a room with them that’s when they kill each other yes it’s basically the plot of the thing yes this is showing our age we’re old we forget everything this is so bad yes I know what you’re talking about anyways

2:26 know what you’re talking about anyways those characters if you went on to like Teemu to find like a whole family of different colors and characters was like let’s just be them let’s all be the little oh I want to say it’s like a alone but it’s not that g that not that name of the game dang it com Tommy Google the game figure out what the game name is I was about to say Among Us in chat thank you very much Among Us game so that’s the game and it was like let’s just be among us and then we’ll just run from door to door and then

2:56 just run from door to door and then we’ll sneak behind bushes and just pop out and run around like I think that would be that’s almost like yeah it was really funny I just thought was it tickled My Funny Bone but everyone’s like no veto dad that’s a dumb idea we’re not doing it I’m like dang it you’re like one of you thought of this everyone who thought that was a great idea I’m gonna be I’m gonna grab my microphone I’m gonna walk around I’m gonna be a podcaster from the explosive MERS podcast that’s what I’m going to be for Halloween there’s something to be said Mike about coming up with an idea as a dad where it can automatically get vetoed where if anyone else in your

3:26 get vetoed where if anyone else in your family thought of that idea they were going that’s a great idea we should definitely do that yeah was it that idea Seth you got anything well the kids one is one is still fitting into the costume bought last year so big dou year and it was like okay we’re gonna get one more year out of it sweet the older one wants a new one so I forget what he wants to be but while you guys were talking as as far as like great dad ideas which are total not good ideas like recently my brothers and

3:59 good ideas like recently my brothers and I like actually this was last night started chatting back and forth in the vernacular of young kids these days picking up all the words ter IDE a terrible idea very go as a school age boy right like all the words ofing on your yeah dude dude Sigma what I realized that we got older when did long socks get popular yeah stuck up on you if I spent

4:29 popular yeah stuck up on you if I spent a a long socks I would have been ridiculed out of school no are coming back yeah full force you got to roll them now you you get the Nike socks you pull them up really high and then you roll them back down or something like that that’s what my daughter does I wouldn’t been allowed to go to prom if I wore long socks to high school like how bad it was never really went to prom stuff boring wasn’t really to really to computers I got a lot of I got a lot of negatives sir so story for another day

5:00 negatives sir so story for another day story for another day so yeah anyway looking forward to Halloween again there’s a good friend that always throws a party and coincides with his daughter’s birthday so excellent good day it’s a good day giving out candy and having party in a driveway nice we’re jumping in for our main topic today we’ll do a couple more news and announcement things here but our our main topic for today is going to be working with custom visuals there’s two really awesome custom visuals there’s a whole more 150 plus

5:31 visuals there’s a whole more 150 plus more on the Microsoft app source for powerbi you can go get custom visuals from there what are our opinions what is what is an MPP perspective on custom visuals should we learn how to build things like things in chartic or things in denb are there any other ones that we are aware of that we should be learning how to use inside powerbi and maybe one of our some of our experiences around working with custom visuals so that’s going to be our main topic for today but before we get in there I do have a an open question this is not really an a news article this is just a random question

6:02 just a random question forone have you guys been using dark mode in mode in desktop and what are your thoughts what are your initial reactions this has been released now for like a couple weeks it’s been out I immediately raced to desktop to turn it on and I’ve been using it how about you guys what do you think do this I’ll do this in the in the way of my favorite commercial oh yeah is that is that that’s Kool-Aid right Kool-Aid man yeah the Kool-Aid Man I’m with you a th% with the dark mode

6:34 I’m with you a th% with the dark mode yeah there are some things you’re like oh that’s weird but my workflow my eyes have not been read on this podcast for a long time thanks dark mode so no I I would say that dark mode I’m so happy that it’s part of powerbi desktop now after nine years but still happy it’s there it’s absolutely been a game CH for me from I think a well-being point of view has been a game changer awesome yeah I’m I’m not going to lie and I’m not saying that you guys

7:05 to lie and I’m not saying that you guys are but oh I’m going to definitely on this one that’s for sure I am I am a dark mode guy everything’s dark mode yep however I find that if I don’t seize the moment I am like oh yeah I should go do that and go do it yeah I forget to do it so i’ I’ve been in one of these Cycles where it’s all about just tons of data engineering ing into tons of data validation I’m throwing thing I’m actually I’m in powerbi Daily right validating doing things and it has never

7:36 validating doing things and it has never crossed my mind since so as we’re talking about it today I’m gonna write it it down go to the computer and turn it on over my like turn on dark mode yes so my I don’t have this is not a gripe this is maybe just a general feedback this is not I like the dark mode I I’ll just be clear I like dark mode it looks really good the co-pilot icon really pops against that black it’s definitely I think this is all marketing Ploy honestly this is this was going dark mode was only so they could highlight co-pilot more I believe I

8:07 highlight co-pilot more I believe I think that’s really what they were doing here okay so so that’s what was happening I like it a lot the only two icons I really don’t really love is now the power apps icon in desktop is almost undetectable because it’s got like this dark purple to it on top of a black background so that’s what but I don’t use a lot of power apps so it’s not my thing building tables building models models building dax’s query view stuff if you’re doing like data modeling exercises dude dark mode is like the

8:37 exercises dude dark mode is like the cats meow I love it it’s it’s good on my eyes it feels like I’m in vs code it’s it’s got the dark mode I love everything about it it’s really solid there hasn’t been any UI issu sometimes you get into like a UI issue like if you’re in like power query and like the header or the text or something will be a little bit off it feels like none of that has even happened like everything feels clear and legible there’s no text that is black text on a black background I haven’t I have not observed any parts in the tool that are hiding text because of just some weird formatting of what’s going on so it’s no problem there the only thing I do have a

9:09 problem there the only thing I do have a gripe with is it just feels so Stark when I’m building the report now so if I’m doing the modeling of stuff not a problem as soon as I get to modeling doing the report piece the report area is just so bright now compared to the trim of the desktop dark mode I feel like we’re going to get a wave of influenced or subliminally influenced like we’re going to get a bunch of people building dark mode reports now they’re going to get a lot of reports are going to come out using like a darker theme on top of them and I think

9:40 darker theme on top of them and I think I’ve even seen on Twitter now a little bit more X I’ve seen a little bit more people just building darker things in themes because I feel like it’s just it’s very bright now compared to

9:51 it’s very bright now compared to what it used to be I thought you’re going to go the other way and to your point Mike the this is actually from a great book called nudge and when you change slight things in your environment how much that can adapt or to change later I thought you’re going to say you’re going to see more like pastel or pastel color colors like more lighter colors maybe because you want to contrast it but I see what you’re saying Something’s Gonna Change I I think I think influence something I think by by changing that entire background all the

10:21 changing that entire background all the way around the outside edge I think it really does influen you your your Mantra or like your your your Vibe around what you’re trying to build and I think I think you might start seeing so all I’ll say is pay attention to social medias watch what’s coming out I’m guessing you’re going to see just a handful of more darker themed visuals and reports and things that are going to try to people are inspired Now by having the dark mode they’re going to say well I should build a a a dark background I should build dark things inside desktop and so there’s going to be some

10:51 and so there’s going to be some push I think from people to build stuff there a little bit more in the darker mode anyways just some food for thought I do like it though it’s awesome I wonder if this will change people though to your point even where you’re like oh this report looks great the canvas is great they publish it they go back to normal powerbi I go those colors actually don’t look as great as I thought because honestly there’s not a lot of browsers and powerbi service doesn’t have a dark mode right correct so the other thing the only thing you

11:22 so the other thing the only thing you could influence from the outside of the canvas is the wallpaper which usually will also dictate your theme and what what other colors you’re going to do so I also I could see at least myself doing this in dark mode choosing colors that look great in dark mode and I’m not saying a dark theme it can still be a light theme but things that go well with the environment around me of the dark colors as soon as you publish that it’s probably it’s going to have a different look see not it’s worse that’s

11:52 look see not it’s worse that’s interesting it’s interesting you guys are going down that path because even having not turned it on yet yes I I would see that 90 90% of like me developing right y let’s be frank isn’t isn’t tons which is like 10% real 90% is well it it’s it it’s to the point that I want to build like focus on the visualization then I turn it off I was planning on turning it off I don’t I

12:22 planning on turning it off I don’t I don’t see how you would I don’t see how you would build a report for like fit for purpose out in the wild in dark mode and and this is where I think maybe my head is going little specifically for what you were talking about yes because you’re going to be influenced by like that it’s you’re looking at this the aesthetic of the page and you’re seeing the aesthetic of that contrasting against the very dark background and and to your point Seth like you go to power com and Tommy you’re making great Point as well you go to service the service is all brighter and lighter anyways

12:54 all brighter and lighter anyways I would all like this is where I’m starting I’m starting to Waffle on this where do I actually build the report now because now that I have get integration I’m less inclined me again Tommy’s going to say no I’m going to say I’m less inclined to build report stuff inside desktop anymore I’m building more you can sit off in your 1% land that’s fine yeah because you’re missing half the features in the service anyways go you don’t you don’t have buttons you don’t bookmarks any anyway we’re going to stick to C visual you have you have buttons and you have bookmarks no no

13:24 buttons and you have bookmarks no no there you are missing some features my friend in the service yes and then but I would maybe even argue with you Tommy on this one so I I I agree with you there is some missing features however I’ve also decided that in my building stuff in desktop mode I’m trying to use intentionally use less of the advanced features so I have found if I’m building really complex reports it means a lot less people can maintain them and I’m trying to build simpler reports in desktop you’re you’re you are changing

13:54 desktop you’re you’re you are changing your reports for your your style of development which is fine sounds actually it’s streamlined but it’s it’s streamlined more but if you really want the well again I’m also in a mode where I need to hand stuff off to other people so like I’m building stuff and I’m giving to other teams to own and so if I have to write a lot more documentation around here’s how all these bookmarks work oh by the way you don’t even really know what they do because you can’t look at into the code to do them so you just have to trust that this bookmark is going to do the right thing and I have to it’s just I’ve done classes on this and people start

14:24 done classes on this and people start getting lost when you have like really complex bookmarks hiding and showing things so to me if I’m going to build something I’m going to hand it off to another team I’m going to try and build the basic reporting element and not throw a bunch of bells and whistles on it unless I know I’m working with someone who’s going to be able to maintain it when I leave and give it back to them so that’s one of the reasons why I’m simplifying things and trying trying to make it as those things are nice to have UI X elements they’re not necessarily

14:55 elements they’re not necessarily functional for like getting the answers about the data out and I try and think about how how can I get the data to the answer out first and then maybe we come back with a little bit of uiux tweaking I I would agree if we’re if we’re talking internal reporting 100% agree make it as simp especially if it’s newer teams you they need to get acclimated there is so much they should be focusing on first in terms of like the value they can bring and 90% of that’s going to be with Dax right the things that they can do as far as the calculations on the raw data and visualizing things

15:26 data and visualizing things simplistically yes with those calculations well before well before you start diving into all of the things that you could make powerbi turn into like an application page sure because the complexity to that if not driven by the business is yeah 100% it’s the maintenance so in the case of like internal reporting 100% agree it like love the features are there because it allows us for especially for like customer facing reporting or% things

15:58 customer facing reporting or% things where body comes in with wild ideas of I want my report looking like a UI or I’m going to plug it in it should operate like this then it’s there for that but don’t start there certainly do not start there of course but I think also the two statements that were said can coexist together just because there’s an advanced feature does it mean by Nature it’s it’s complex so the the idea of having a bookmark in your report the word Advanced implies complex I would argue a little bit more complexity yes so the

16:29 little bit more complexity yes so the bookmark feature drill through feature is that an advanced feature is that a basic feature I think that’s basic stuff I I don’t bookmarking but if you’re if you’re tying a bookmark to a button where you’re going to switch out which visual you’re going to use on the report there’s also kpi swinging in like in like a can you please add animation to everything let’s do animate everything I agree no we’re on there but but to your point there there’s actually been new features that have maybe obsolete obsoleted obs

16:59 obsoleted obs deprecated some of these Advanced building features right so I wasn’t able to change a bar chart to a pie chart or a column chart or something I couldn’t change that that you can now personalize the visuals well that’s that requires no Advanced customization that’s just built into the tool now so like yeah people need to learn how to do it but I’d rather push people to customize the visual you figure it out as opposed to me building fancy buttons and things that Hoggle between stuff right that’s that’s more of my opinion we we just had an episode on too about the personalized

17:30 an episode on too about the personalized visuals and I feel like this is a pretty good segue as we talk about some Advanced features and as we talk about visuals I I would agree with this so let’s let transition let’s go to our main topic I guess go ahead Tommy oh no this is all Seth oh it is okay great Seth take it away this is a mailbag question when was this dropped into the mailbag Tommy was it a while ago it might have been a while ago you guys have been mail bags 2020 I don’t know I

18:00 have been mail bags 2020 I don’t know I have been mail bags 2020 I don’t know either it’s a user that’s mean either it’s a user that’s just coming on to things that were built a long time ago congratulations Mike your stuff still lives on or it was a while ago yeah it’s probably well the videos Believe It or Not the chartic videos that we’ve done still get a good amount of hits these days and as well so this is this is why Seth is referencing this go read the read the question Seth we tease me more about my old videos I recently found the podcast because I stumbled on the chartic tutorials like Carlo posted on YouTube

18:32 tutorials like Carlo posted on YouTube right away I’m getting great recognition within my company for building more complex customized visuals beyond the standard visuals within powerbi are there other tools resources out there for people like myself who want to differentiate themselves with more complex visuals inside powerbi and I I’ll I’ll also add this this user thank you very much for the question you also added some amazing icons in there so getting recognition with your more custom RBI

19:03 recognition with your more custom RBI visuals there’s like a gold medal like winning like yeah that’s very awesome which is great because it shows up in our powerbi report the icons do too which you can also do yeah Tommy Tommy scrapes all the questions from the website and puts them into a powerb report that he can Groom through and watch it ref it refreshes as every day every day every seven every every 10 minutes Tommy refreshes the report where you’re using all the premium my GitHub got so so Tommy can look at the comments coming in from the podcast all one of

19:33 coming in from the podcast all one of them every day iil for a title uses 80% of our of our engine we’re running it through advanced AI we’re using so many cus 50% of our

19:43 AI we’re using so many cus 50% of our capacity is just sitting there monitoring I want to know what word we use the most and apparently it’s the or it’d be funny comes out uhp uhp it oh goodness gracious that’s funny okay so about the topic so custom visuals awesome let’s let’s pay some homage to chartic because that’s like a really interesting product that Microsoft made let’s give a little bit of history on what that is for people who don’t know what chartic is and then

20:14 who don’t know what chartic is and then maybe we we drop back just a little bit and say what are custom visuals and how do they interact with powerb desktop so Char articulator is a research project that came out of Microsoft research it was an open- Source HTML based visualization program it ran on I think it ran on d3. js which is a visualization JavaScript based language and the idea was look no one really wants to write code to build visuals what we really want is we want like a graphical editor and so chartic was this research project from Microsoft research

20:46 research project from Microsoft research you could send it a data set and once you had the data set you could basically build bars and and a a chart basically add visual elements to some charting system system and then you could bind different dimensions the color of the bar to a data point the height of the bar to a data point the width of the bar to a data point and then Char articulator would know how to bind all these data elements to visual properties of shapes or images so

21:16 visual properties of shapes or images so this is how you could build like a lollipop chart you’d have a lollipop the stick would go up a certain height and then you could put a bubble on the top and then the size of the bubble could be some other data point whatever you wanted right so you could start building these more creative things if you could dream it and you could put shapes on a page you could then leverage the idea of bringing these data elements from chartic into that so that’s the starting point of what chartic is a a graphical design system for building very flexible charts and there were some

21:46 very flexible charts and there were some other interesting things that it did to had some inv visual calculations some grouping inside the visual things we couldn’t do typically in normal powerbi visuals very much the first of its kind to I would Age yeah because I don’t think any other and I we a few other business intelligence tools I don’t remember anything that had that type of user interface or that kind that type of user interface or that con conceptual design in the of con conceptual design in the Microsoft ecosystem I’d say no yeah you’d have to go other places to find a similar design system to building

22:18 similar design system to building visuals like T like tab Tableau it almost so my argument with like when I did the video for YouTube was chartic is the solution for Tableau for power guy right because we have all these standard visuals and I just drag a field over and boom a a bar chart shows up but I couldn’t adjust the width of the bars or I couldn’t really stylize the text at the end of the bars or there was other things you just couldn’t do to tweak it and get what you want out of it so Tableau was more around like okay what do you want to build add data elements

22:51 do you want to build add data elements to shapes on a page and it will know how to build the visual chart for you so it felt a lot more like Tableau could build very flexible highly creative very unique versions of visuals and it had more ability to do more creative things right it there was definitely larger learning curve sorry go ahead Seth I I just I from from brief experiences a while ago with Tableau articulator struck me as something that was that didn’t feel the same but and was more

23:21 was more customizable more customizable than Tableau correct yeah yes but powerbi didn’t have that story of like let’s it was design first or lad right yeah correct it wasn’t like so in in in the world then Tableau has probably changed a little bit now since I’ve played with it cuz I my masters in data science and that’s when I started bucking around with TBL I was like this is a crappy tool I hate it it’s so slow and then I was like let me do all of my Master’s visualization program in powerbi and I wowed every once it was funny anyways that being said

23:51 funny anyways that being said Tableau has this concept or at least how it was design you design the visual like you get like a single Visual and you bind data to what that visual is doing and then once you have that visual built you could then load it to a page and then you would build the next Visual and you could build the next visual powerbi took this approach of like here’s an entire page build as many visuals as you want on one big page and so the whole design process to me felt very different when you brought in chartic you would go into chartic You’ build the singular Visual and then you’d say okay this is what I want and then

24:21 say okay this is what I want and then I’d be done with it and I’d say save it would save the definition of the visual and go back to the main page and then you had this whole array other visuals and it would be interactive it could it could cross filter things into your normal powerbi visuals and back and so that was like wow this is really interesting you could really build more and Carrie thank you very much Carrie’s one of our incredible visual builders on the internet I I got to give her mad credit because everything Carrie makes is like top-notch great quality stuff but she’s telling us a tableau is

24:51 but she’s telling us a tableau is more of a grammar of Graphics right as opposed to what powerbi does which is more of like a taxonomy approach here’s my B chart this the height of my bar fill out these fields and you get the you get the output so anyways that’s my initial impression let’s go back to what custom visuals are right so chartic is this highly stylized visual if you go back to the app source so you can actually add your own visuals that the that companies publish into appsource

25:21 that companies publish into appsource some companies publish things that are free you can use them for free no issue other companies have a paid license that goes along with this so I think zebra bi has a license of this trying to think of other custom visuals that you pay for Tommy do you oh I think it’s like flight UI but there’s there’s a there’s a few stacks of develop developer companies who have not just one but you basically buy a subscription of like 25 visuals now a lot of them interestingly enough are the standard visuals but to

25:53 enough are the standard visuals but to your point Mike with added flexibility so there I would call them two segments right the custom visuals designs that are not available in powerbi correct and there’s companies who said well you have a bar chart in powerbi but we can do a lot more with it correct more customization more more styling maybe there’s maybe there’s like some you can do edits and code and things and so there’s a spectrum of what you’re going to find on the marketplace and so charc fits into that highly customized don’t need to pay for it it’s

26:24 customized don’t need to pay for it it’s just you get it and load it in now I I do the sad thing here has been Microsoft research was owning the chartic visual chartic has since been not deprecated but unsupported from Microsoft so Microsoft has since said we’re not going to support the chartic visual anymore however the community and this is what’s really cool about our community in powerbi our community has stepped up a gentleman by the name of ilat has picked up the torch of continually maintaining it adding more

26:54 continually maintaining it adding more features to it and so he is there’s now a community addition of chartic that he owns and has published to the Microsoft store and so chartic lives on there is some support again it’s not through an unofficial company but it is continually getting support and new features as it moves forward so I’m very pleased to know that people like the visual enough that it’s still getting supported there’s still people who know how to build it and there’s people that are maintaining it still that is good news I thought just

27:25 just theine well there was a lot of effort put into to make it this amazing thing and it just never really went anywhere do you find M and you’ve done a lot of work on custom visuals especially to articulator with your you have a great video series as I look at the mailbag question and I’m phrasing today out there’s again there are a few areas of custom visuals there are I’m just going to go to the app source and I’m going to choose a custom visual that suits my needs at this time not a lot of research maybe takes me two

27:55 not a lot of research maybe takes me two minutes because I’m looking for a text filter or looking for a histogram there’s someone who’s going to do a little more research and then I think there’s that third category of I’m going straight developer I’m going straight into I have a very particular idea and I need a very particular solution this person sounds like they’re like I need something and they went straight to tartic the question is is that common do people find themselves going straight towards an advanced tool like

28:26 towards an advanced tool like articulator first well I’ll say this right so if was standard visual there’s a very low learning curve easy to get a visual on the page easy to drop visuals on it chartic had a number of like weird bugs and things in it so for me when I was learning it it was always like it’s cool it can do a lot of really interesting things I could build really elaborate visuals in there stuff that I could not build in normal powerbi reports plain and simple but it it took an entire mind shift difference for me to figure out how to build things in

28:56 to figure out how to build things in there in the right order because you could build stuff but you had to build things in a sequence that made sense to the visual so a couple times I would build a visual and I would need two or three or four times trying to build it because oh like that doesn’t work or there’s a bug here and it wasn’t binding the data correctly and it was weird so I know okay I had to make this bar chart thing first and then I had to join it to this other part of the data chart elements and then it would work so there’s there’s just it was it was more of a learning curve for me and so

29:26 more of a learning curve for me and so as long as you have some solid tutorials and us to build some of the basic stuff what I recommend if you’re

29:31 basic stuff what I recommend if you’re ever building like Advanced tools like denb or chartic start building basic chart types first learn the basics learn how to build a pie chart learn how to build a bar chart learn how to build a clustered column chart if you learn how to build those things first your mind will start changing on how it thinks on how to build those elements and you’ll get better at building more advanced things beyond that yeah a couple things strike me with the question itself one is is I I think this is an individual who like either

30:01 this is an individual who like either had a specific problem they wanted to solve right and went looking for ways in which to build a visual and or knew about CH like got onto the chartic this is how you can go custom build some visualizations but they’re you you you definitely have to have the goget spirit to start learning how to custom build a visual in powerbi the other thing I would say is it I’m reading it in such a way that the organization that they work for is

30:31 organization that they work for is pretty powerbi heavy because the vast like if they’re instantly getting recognition in in their report people and and people like recognize that it’s so different than what they they normally see that to me that speaks to a lot of folks see a lot of different reports and this one’s standing out and they must have done a really good job with the visualization these are all assumptions but these are some of the things I’m picking up I like that you went that way because that’s exact I was

31:02 went that way because that’s exact I was trying to think of who are we talking about here and is someone internal is someone but to your point that does see a lot of different things I don’t know if this is a little too far ahead but this goes back to our intro and I want to see if you can sell me on the value ad for such an advanced visual just to your point when we talked about Advanced features in powerbi we’re also talking about an advanced feature here which articul Cal if I’m internal if I’m working in this system and again

31:32 if I’m working in this system and again I’m not just researching I’m not just doing my normal MVP things or testing something out I have multiple reports I have to have to build where’s the value add for something like ttic where’s the value ad for chartic or an advanced custom visual not just noral yeah it’s when the requests come in that you can’t do the normal standard parbi visual stuff right so that’s it’s the what there’s

32:03 that’s it’s the what there’s PBI and the visuals that you get today only do certain things that’s it there’s and before we also had no inv visual calculations and again that’s another feature that we have now with where you can write measures inside a visual that calculate things inside the measure but in even then I would say I would argue how many people are actually using that I don’t think very many so there we’re talking about very edge case use things that things you’re like to your point set earlier right the company recognizing your work on chartic means they understood the boundaries of what powerbi could typically do can we build

32:33 powerbi could typically do can we build this there’s a common knowledge like oh we can’t build that because the powerbi visuals don’t support it okay interesting so I’ve had other use cases where someone was like hey we want to build a thermometer in our report that’s measuring temperature up and down and it should be blue at the bottom and it should go red at the top there’s no standard visual that builds a thermometer and and does that you could do certain things but you need a gradient you need this thing to go up and down you like there’s all these extra features you need in order to build something that looks like quote unquote a thermometer so in order to do

33:03 unquote a thermometer so in order to do that you start thinking about well what can I build to do or accomplish that type of thing so that it’s it’s things like that where the C the company’s looking to stylize a report and I think to your point Seth as well earlier we’re we’re polishing reports either for executives or for external clients we’re trying to make it not look like powerbi and more like a web application and that’s where these custom visuals I think really start pushing on the edges of this is something we can build where it’s now well I’ll say this one as well

33:34 it’s now well I’ll say this one as well the designers who show up to power behind like Hey we’re going to build reports and they come in with this like really weird like okay we want the numbers to look like exactly like this and have to have tick marks like like this and we have to have the numbers do that and when the formatting of the words happen we want it to switch halfway through it’s all these really weird like designer based requirements that you’re like whoa whoa time out that’s that’s not what powerbi does you can’t do that in powerbi most most of what you’re asking for is accomplishable 80% but that other 20% is not you can’t do it and that’s where I think the

34:04 do it and that’s where I think the custom V custom visuals pick it up and to be perfectly honest you can build full custom visuals like write the code for the whole visual that there is a development kit for custom visuals that you can use and the downside of this is you now have to be a developer you have to write all code all the you have to know how to write and build build d3. js and I think a lot of normal business users aren’t ready for that level and so when we talk about like chartic and particularly denb they are grammar-based visuals meaning you define

34:35 grammar-based visuals meaning you define the spec or specification of how the visual works and then the tool can interpret that spec and then build the visual for you so it’s a it’s a stop gap between if you’re building a full-on custom visual you’re talking three weeks a month maybe longer to figure out how to build everything if you’re talking about denb interarticulator you get that visual experience with like days maybe the the Frameworks are are built for you to quickly yeah build a custom visual yeah yeah that’s what I’m trying to get at yeah yeah and I I think Mike I I

35:07 at yeah yeah and I I think Mike I I agree with you I I think the two the two scenarios where you go down the C like the custom VI route relate to either the the somebody sees a visualization that powerbi doesn’t natively have like support for MH but a lot of those I think are covered in the app Source now right like it’s pretty like I haven’t run into a case where it’s like a what I would say a a a well-known or standard

35:39 would say a a a well-known or standard visual that just isn’t native to powerbi isn’t in appsource it’s a click away usually the other is where somebody come comes in with hey I saw this thing in a slide or I saw that this tool did this or there was this really cool whatever can we go build that and the answer is well what’s great is the answer is probably without the full custom Dev route using chartic or denb and I we’ll probably start

36:10 or denb and I we’ll probably start talking a little bit more about denb but I I think the the stress point here for the organization is twofold cool it’s great you’re building things but this also speak there’s a part of this that speaks to our earlier part of the conversation where we were just talking about out of the box functionality that we completely limit or remove from the basics right because as you add complexity you’re

36:41 because as you add complexity you’re adding the comp the complexity to support the solution right and when you introduce custom Dev custom building visuals customized bookmarks and buttons and all of this other stuff you require a different level of developer mhm to not only support it but also build net new forward so there there is a a caution here where it’s like okay great you can build all those things but the level of supporting them is also amped up a little bit so

37:13 them is also amped up a little bit so that’s a very very interesting point because I want to First agree with Mike when it comes to the idea of listen if we’re doing this it’s usually for an executive or leadership position I’m not just doing this for the random Joe’s and Karens or whoever they are are because of the amount of time but Seth you put raised an interesting point the amount of people on an organization who would be very familiar and and or experienced with chartic or denb is probably going to be small too so if I were to build

37:44 to be small too so if I were to build this in a leadership report or for a very let’s say high level report because that’s the only value ad well I may be the only person who knows how to do that right or or I have to train do I have to now have to train someone for backup if I were to leave go to Sicily the whole idea of what we’ve talked about value at from a skill point of view if I’m the only person with that skill well I don’t know does I’m now struggling with okay does that

38:15 I’m now struggling with okay does that even make sense to even incorporate especially in the leadership report again not saying these these tools are not worth it because especially denb nowadays too and what I can do is amazing but if I’m in an internal organization and I’m the only one with this skill and experience well what happens then there is no backup that’s like mean I’m the only person knowing power apps and the company relies on power apps what happens when I leave I power apps what happens when I leave that’s that’s a process and a

38:46 mean that’s that’s a process and a People thing I’m not worried as much about that as far as what we’re talking about here right so this is this is more about extending so I agree with your statement there like you do have to be mindful of if you’re going to build this is this goes with anything whether you’re building more advanced bookmarks inside desktop that’s already supported features of desktop anyways or you’re building things with chartic or you’re building things with app Source or power apps there’s a there’s a an idea that there’s knowledge in someone’s head that’s building that thing and if you don’t have good documentation around it or at least explaining it to someone else as you’re transitioning someone may

39:16 else as you’re transitioning someone may get promoted move on and then what happens to that tool it just just lives on and right no one actually

39:21 just lives on and right no one actually learns how to how to transition that so that’s to me that’s more of a people and a process part of this you have to make sure as a company if you’re deciding to go down this route for these more highly customized visuals have a support plan at least at some level right or make it very aware that if we’re going down this route when Tommy gets a promotion and moves on and he’s no longer mocking around with articulator you’re going to need someone to back fill that knowledge and get to a point where they understand okay we actually need some time for Tommy to sit down and learn this

39:52 Tommy to sit down and learn this articulator thing so he can get into that space so I definitely do think you don’t want to have a single knowledge point of one person as your company grows as you get bigger you definitely want to cross train at least two people minimum maybe more if you have the opportunity this is a I would also argue chartic is a great Community Practice teaching element right so if you have a Community Practice you run something monthly or bonly this is a great opportunity sit down do a 30 minute one hour here’s an interactive demo of what chartic can do here’s how denb

40:23 of what chartic can do here’s how denb would work and we’re talking a lot about chartic I do love it but or though when I’m trying to build custom visuals if I’m doing anything custom beyond the normal visuals I’m immediately going to denb like denb denb is my choice for custom visuals right now tartic was just a bit too buggy for me denb is a bit more code so I’m writing some Json but man I the neb is just incredible what it can do so that that was I want to put a pin where we’ve been to move into the neb

40:54 where we’ve been to move into the neb because I think that’s naturally where the progression of the conversation goes but I would say the last point to building any custom visualization is you have to treat it as it as what it is in your report which is a unique piece that needs to be well documented at least from an implementation standpoint so that somebody else could triage a potential problem or fix it like adjust something so you don’t need to know everything about it but you need to know that it’s this special type of object right and you

41:26 special type of object right and you special type of object right and somebody else to support it so you know somebody else to support it so you you are adding complexity to the solution but you you mitigate that a little bit yeah with with that I I guess treating it like a specific implementation within the larger report so so Mike you were naturally just moving on to the next area where I want thought we were going to go any which is which is great which was should should the poster because they were asking are there other tools or resources out there for people like myself who want to differentiate

41:56 myself who want to differentiate themselves when we look at custom visuals chartic was the great starting point but since then denb has emerged and what makes you I think you were rapidly going into what makes denb different but there is I think two things that are that we should lean into what makes denb different and two I think there’s a lot more capabilities denb has related to building custom visualization than t

42:27 building custom visualization than t would have I I think the reason why I like ANB so much is because it is less what I call less buggy than when I used ttic because trtic really required me to build things in a certain pattern in a certain direction if I didn’t have certain elements on the page and I didn’t correct them correctly bind them together correctly I had a hard time undoing that and re and and making it work so to be very clear I’ve been I’ve been working with ilfat I’ve been talking to about chartic and what’s happening there we actually have a version an early version of chartic on our site at parbi tips we have charts.

42:58 our site at parbi tips we have charts. parbi tips which is a derivative of chartic it’s a bit older in nature we’re actually trying to work with ill fat now to get ours updated so it’s the current Community version of it because we want to support the community with these really rich tools but that being said it just there was just a little bit of friction for me inside chartic that was like what denb solves this problem and so since denb is a declarative Visual and it works solely on here’s the specification you write this code and it works very consistent

43:29 this code and it works very consistent and if you adjust the code it was very easy to adjust okay it talks about this thing called marks right so you build there’s like a canvas and then on there you have marks and then the marks have properties this Mark is a bar a rectangle and it has a width and a height and you can bind different data properties of that bar or it has a color and you’re going to make a gradient scale and you’re going to start doing those elements as well so that’s really why I I really transitioned to denb because I felt like I had more

43:59 denb because I felt like I had more control of Designing what I wanted to and it was less buggy because I could literally delete some line of code replace it with something else and see it change how the visual works and so I think that’s to me that’s the really the nice part here it was more consistent from a developer experience and it does more things like there’s Daniel Marsh Patrick I got to give him a huge shout out this is a solo project it’s made by a single individual on his nights and weekends building this visual he’s made it from scratch he’s integrated it and

44:30 it from scratch he’s integrated it and it’s actually built on a technology that’s not his it’s built on a spec called Vega and Vega light these are a I don’t know I don’t remember which university it came out of maybe Carrie maybe you can fact check me on where Vega and Vega like came from but there’s a university that has built this specification to interpret code turn it into into d3. js stuff on the back end and it renders the visuals for you so it’s

45:00 it renders the visuals for you so it’s it’s one layer of abstraction a way of writing the raw code to make the visual run so what Daniel did says look I’ll give you an editor inside desktop I’m going to give you a visual renderer that renders it in a in a preview window and you hit done and it just makes the visual work so that experience what he built there was just so well thought out so elegant it gives you debuggers and there’s error loging and there’s a whole window at the bottom that tells you what data points do you see and how is it working with the visual like the stuff is incredible it’s a full developer Suite basically built into a single Visual and it’s amazing so that’s really

45:33 Visual and it’s amazing so that’s really the reason why I moved away from Char articulator into the neb because it gave me just so much more knowledge information back about what I was building and I could make better decisions on how I built the visual yeah I think Carrie was saying she’s checking here she says it might have been MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology that that built the standard for Vega and Vega light and they maintain it so there’s actually a collection of colleges that continue investing in this community open source project so Vega Vega light open source you can see how the code’s written

46:04 you can see how the code’s written people are regularly adding more features to it and there there’s now a Consortium of of people leading that Helm and they’re continually building new things you can drop Vega and vegalite into your website if you wanted right you can just use it it’s it goes anywhere it’s not it’s not specific to powerbi or to neb visual it it can be used in any form and the difference between something like denb espe I think as we that’s a transition also from Pure design from a the person building to is a little more developer based like you

46:34 a little more developer based like you said it’s Json I would agree have a developer stack and the difference to my initial thought is well what about the investment in python or R those are also custom visuals or visuals that page but with the neb and I think the big distinction is it has all the capabilities in powerbi such as the interaction and a cross filter interaction correct don’t python I think you either have to enable it or has to be the right type of visual well it’s interesting you say that because so what happens there is is there’s like so if

47:05 happens there is is there’s like so if you think about how a visual is built right there’s that little frame right that lives okay thank you Carrie for correcting it it was the University of Washington that University of Washington is what came out with the spec thank you the the frame so when you go into PBI you have the the properties of the visual and then there’s that little like anchors that around the square there’s like they call it like a container the VIS ual lives in a container and so if Python and R were going to interact with other visuals on the page the container

47:35 other visuals on the page the container needs to be able to be smart enough to say oh look I’m going to go listen to signals from the rest of my report and pass them into python right and so I think this is where the containers of R Python and R they just didn’t do a good job and those are again those are maintained by Microsoft they’re they’re visuals that Microsoft provides to us those containers need a little bit more love and updating so that they stay in line with the standard spec of powerbi visuals so for me those misses those are

48:08 visuals so for me those misses those are misses in my opinion of like they just don’t keep updated and so because there’s an active developer on now chartic and on denb we’re getting all the new features Microsoft is releasing cross filtering and inv visual calculations and all the other things you have to change your visual to use those new Fe features if you don’t change your visual to use them it it just falls behind and so without active development to keep these visuals up to date you start seeing other things like again Microsoft probably

48:38 like again Microsoft probably prioritizes other features above hey let’s make sure we keep the python visual visual upate because there’s like only 10 people using them we shouldn’t we shouldn’t spend all this time and money building them better for the record we’re talking about the custom R code and not the r custom visuals that are in powerbi so those do have the cross filter interaction like the correlation chart but if I actually want to write code to build the visual I know we’re getting near time and as I Lov an neb but I want to take this person in the mailbag or someone who’s maybe more

49:09 mailbag or someone who’s maybe more articular based not developer based sell

49:12 articular based not developer based sell me or not sell me but what’s my road to start using denp like where do I start if I’m like I don’t know when you say developer stack I’m stack of pancakes I don’t know what you’re talking about where do we go from here if I want to start really getting more Advanced custom visuals I love that question and I just asked the same question into the chat as well if anyone in chat’s listening to this one all five of you whatever whoever is there if you’re using denb what are you finding like put it in the chat window like what are you finding that’s valuable to you

49:42 are you finding that’s valuable to you around using denb and so I’ll give a little bit of my experience hopefully Carrie will jump in some as well but I think what is the where do I get started right MH one of the things I found that seems to be a lot richer is chartic has some documentation around it there’s a little bit there there’s some some community support you can find some videos on YouTube it’s definitely out there you can get some help but I feel like the denb and the Vega because Vega and Vega light are this open- Source library of things it’s not specific to powerbi I feel like the community

50:13 powerbi I feel like the community support around denb has been much larger there’s a lot more people who can answer the questions around how would I build a visual that looks like this or when I build a visual this thing this part of my spec seems weird how would I retool that so it works correctly and so for me there’s a there’s actually a really good you go to denb visual Gallery they’ve got like 30 or 40 different custom visuals that are all right there you can literally copy the spec drop it right into the neb and boom it starts working car has a ton too Carrie has a ton on

50:44 car has a ton too Carrie has a ton on her website She’s got like I don’t know maybe 30 maybe 40 now I don’t know how many there there’s tons of visuals that she’s built and they’re like they’re pretty visual like there’s a flower a petal one there’s all these other interesting things that you wouldn’t normally she did one around the Beatles out album I believe there was like some music that she did it was incredible so like the stuff that people can come up with in these visuals are just way way ahead and the neat part is Carrie publishes the spec on how it was built and you could take pieces of that or learn from that and build other visual elements on top of it so for me it’s just really rich to see the community

51:14 just really rich to see the community supporting these things and if I’m getting started it’s one my my initial tip or trick would be start building the standard visuals go out and learn how to build some of the standard visuals first and then from there go look at a lot of examples and this is where I think the community is not quite there yet we don’t really have a centralized place for chart teator and denb to do like centralized learning around all this but I think with some with some effort there from the community you can start centralizing all

51:44 community you can start centralizing all this information and becoming really really rich in this and yeah Carrie also recommends the Vega light documentation it’s really rich they tell you every property how it works how to set it up little examples the docum ation is just on point so that’s where I would start from a developer standpoint I start learning that spec start learning from the examples on the internet there’s a whole web editor you can just go use it today and muck around with specs and things that are out there already adjust things see what changes and that will probably get you closer to what you want to build as a final

52:16 as a final form I don’t have any other comments any other Seth Tommy any comments you’ve used or found that working with these tools no I haven’t dove into them nearly as deep as you I I think the natural progression of where I would invest more of my time is certainly in denb because it is it is not as I think I I feel chart calculator in comparison to neb is is still like the framework that I can’t bust out of right yeah whereas because you have the full capabilities of those visualization

52:47 capabilities of those visualization platforms underneath as far as like vag and vegalite like this guy’s the limit yeah right so and and to your point I think having a larger Community is also something that makes a tool more useful to a wider audience and because it’s based on a wider open open platform right where people are using those to custom build things on their own for different visualization efforts having that just leveraged into neb offers folks a lot more ability to learn new things and develop in

53:20 new things and develop in a co-partner way right like you’re you’re hey here’s a here’s a sample instead of stting from scratch right and I think that’s where you you pull along more people because you learn by example and repetition of oh okay this is why this thing does this and you this is why this thing does this and it’s a little bit easier to get know it’s a little bit easier to get into a custom Dev framework but ultimately if you want to from from just comparison right seeing some of the things that can come out of the theb

53:50 things that can come out of the theb visual experience versus a chartic if you want to the poster if you want to elevate your game even more so than you already have right like then then EB’s the route for you yeah and I think that goes along my last Point too if you’re starting from the same point of let’s say inexperience both of them have a learning curve ttic and denb however one of them has the inspiration of again we just talked about you can look at and download 70

54:20 about you can look at and download 70 examples of what denb can do yeah and you’re there’s probably going to be more use cases for it a lot more flexibility that being said my last thing I really my last concluding thought here is I still want to give love to the normal custom visuals out there too because they’re still the ones that Microsoft built back in the day man I’m talking 2016 when they had their own website before was the app Source I still use to this day the histagram and the box plot that were still out there

54:50 the box plot that were still out there that I still find a ton of value in so yeah and I think there there’s always going to be a point if you’re building something in denb of I think that I would need to gauge of the C the value add for this type of custom visual compared to building or taking something that’s already coming standard out of the box and I think that’s something that you need to evaluate yourself because no matter how experienced you are on denev or experienced you are on articulator still going to take time to build it’s a that’s a great point I

55:21 build it’s a that’s a great point I wouldn’t go to custom Dev until you fully understand all the native and things in app source that are available to you yeah right which you probably already are if you’re going going that route unless you just love the visual interface and visualization aspect then I I would say maybe that’s where you’re starting but definitely an extremely useful tool to differentiate yourself in any environment is is to pick up the the neb skull yeah excellent with that I just

55:51 skull yeah excellent with that I just want to wrap and say thank you very much for talking about this cool topic I think these are these are pushing Microsoft to keep things modern and current I think stay tuned there’s going to be more stuff coming in this space I’m very excited and continually investing my time in learning of of all those custom visuals the one I learn the most is denb that’s the one I want to spend the most time around it’s one the most rewarding I find very a lot of satisfaction in building it and there’s a ton of great examples tutorials education around that tool in general so if you’re not learning denb you don’t know what it is

56:21 learning denb you don’t know what it is you should definitely spend some time doing it I will also put in to the website here directly the denb visual or DB website so there is a actual website maintained by Daniel Marsh Patrick that can that has like a really rich amount of documentation on there I’ll put that in the chat as well make sure you go check out the denb vz. github. io that’s where denb lives currently and it’s all its documentation what it it’s there to do examples and other things as well highly recommend you spend some timeline in there I believe Carrie I got

56:52 timeline in there I believe Carrie I got her mad credit here the ANB logo has been reworked it’s on this nice cool coloring design to it I believe car was the one who helped influence the coloring of denb and making its visual so Carrie thank you very much for your contributions to the community you’re amazing we love the things that you’re doing there we want to give you a big shout out because this visual wouldn’t be where it is without all of your investment and time and knowledge that you share freely with us so thank you so much that’s again the power of our community thank you all very much really appreciate everyone for jumping in and joining with us today we know your time is valuable and you probably

57:24 your time is valuable and you probably could have been doing a lot of emails and a lot of really heavy work things but instead important things right instead you spend it with us talking about custom visuals and learning more things around the powerbi ecosystem so thank you very much for spending time with us in this way we really appreciate you our ask we only have one ask is look we don’t do advertising on the on the podcast if you found value from this one we really appreciate you just communicating to other people you found value in the podcast and you like it so just let someone else know this is

57:55 it so just let someone else know this is a cool cool medium to learn more about powerbi we’d love it if you could share it with somebody else either on social medias or just talk about with someone at work if you actually go into a building to work anymore I don’t know who does that but people do apparently U that being said Tommy where else can you find the podcast well you can find us in apple Spotify wherever get your podcast make sure to subscribe and leave a rating it helps us out a ton you have a question an idea or a topic that you want us to talk about a future episode head over to power. tips podcast leave your name and a great question finally join us live every Tuesday Tuesday and

58:26 join us live every Tuesday Tuesday and Thursday a. m. Central and join the conversation all power B tips social media channels thank you all very much and we’ll see you next time [Music]

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