Adding Comments to Reports – Ep. 380
Mike, Tommy, and Seth talk through adding comments to reports in Power BI: when it helps, how teams can use it effectively, and the gotchas to watch for in real collaboration workflows.
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Episode Transcript
0:26 kn [Music] good morning and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike good morning everyone welcome back good morning and you may or may not realize we’re wearing the same exact clothes as Tuesday it’s been it’s been a long week for us this is this is maybe this has been one of those like time is different for the audience than it is for us Groundhog Day is it is it what you’re
0:56 Groundhog Day is it is it what you’re you’re alluding to it’s a groundhog day event I thought these guys were were something different it probably wouldn’t it probably wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if Tommy wasn’t wearing like a bright red shirt for those of you listening online Tommy’s wearing like a super Christmas that’s what it says what what does that mean Mike what does that mean for our audience what does that mean for our audience yeah that this is likely a pre-recorded this is likely a pre-recorded episode yes exactly right so Michael usually wears or I wear I’m the same person so I’m talking about myself I typically wear like the same
1:27 myself I typically wear like the same white shirt every single time so like I very rarely change episode to episode but Tommy and Seth actually have like personalities and so they actually wear like different clothes on or different stuff so we should someone in the community we should just have you go through and just take a a screenshot of every single episode and see what people wear throughout the episode like I guarantee you I’m gonna be looking like the same person every single time that’s consistency I guess all right that being said I do I do give it 10 seconds of thought on Thursdays where I go did I wear this on
1:58 where I go did I wear this on Tuesday if I did I don’t care that’s funny that’s awesome for all the the people listening on Spotify you’re welcome you’re welcome for that intro yeah all right this being said this is a pre-recorded episode we’re going to jump into our topic today right away no announcements or news or anything like that we’re going to talk about enhancing powerbi reports tools for the nonuser commentary before delivery I’m not really sure what that means for topics interesting topic there but we’ll let Seth kick it away
2:29 there but we’ll let Seth kick it away here and just give us the we have a little bit more kind a wait to this question there a lot more going on here so there is unpack it for us Seth well I’ll I’ll read it from an unknown user but they are very good I I like this question I think it’s it’s well put together I have built a monthly snapshot in quotes report that is delivered to to more than a dozen different business units across my firm these are the subject of one-on-one meetings between the leads of those units and their manager however each business unit also
3:00 manager however each business unit also has a marketing lead whose job it it is to help the business unit leads understand the metrics and share some context from the marketing world for why a certain kpi is low or high and what steps are being taken in coming months to address them so we have a standard metrics delivered by powerbi that need to have a narrative context added by marketing leaders before the snapshot report goes to its primary audience o I’m well aware of your hostility to power Point that’s me I’m
3:31 power Point that’s me I’m very even with the powerbi addin yep but what are some other tools or approaches that allow non powerbi users to effectively mark up a report as a Final Phase before it is delivered surely this is a common problem wow what a great question this is a really really question glad I’m glad you clarified mid my commentary or the question that is that is a factual Mike hates PowerPoint Mike hates PowerPoint I
4:03 hates PowerPoint Mike hates PowerPoint I use it all the time Seth loves it Seth a PowerPoint wizard no I think I think it’s an it it is an effective way to communicate with with higher-ups in digestible pieces maybe let me clarify my hatred for PowerPoint may maybe I should just clarify that just really quickly here and then we’ll move on I don’t think I hate presentations I think I just so sorely disagree with the PowerPoint tool it has gotten left behind by other great tools that you can use to make presentations
4:34 that you can use to make presentations from so I run a class that teaches people about parbi we have a center of excellence class where we we talk about leading powerbi and doing different I don’t use PowerPoint at all I’ve ditched all of PowerPoint and I use another program called Meo which is much more like a figma type program I still build presentations I still build slide decks but none of them are in PowerPoint because PowerPoint literally infuriates me with how clunky it is to build stuff anyways that’s just me aside that just I still think your to your point though
5:03 still think your to your point though Seth presentations of things is important you have to you have to be able to convey messages through Visual stuff so I’m not I’m not poo pooing that idea I’m just poo pooing literally the tool of PowerPoint there’s other tools out there that I think are much easier to build reports and presentations in that being said I think that comes back to this question though maybe not PowerPoint what other ways can we present context around power reports and let other people add context to them right yeah and this is this is the not this is the Nuance right
5:35 this is the not this is the Nuance right like yes the the audience that is deriving insights from your reports and presenting that yes correct it it’s the after I look at the report but but in conjunction with so to me it’s just slightly outside the we’re all just having fun looking at the report may I may I just take a moment here just to dream for a moment and just articulate some dreaming things around this right let’s
6:05 dreaming things around this right let’s see what you got all right we’ll see what we got what if what I again I’m trying to have empathy for this user right I’m trying to extrapolate out what would be if I had the full control of Microsoft and I had a feature that I was going to put in front of people that’s going to talk to this okay couple things kpi metrics there’s some reasons to why things are up or down we have one team that producing the data in snapshots we have another team that’s going to add context or comments around specific things they looking to hone in on here’s a piece of
6:36 looking to hone in on here’s a piece of data that’s low here’s what we’re going to do to fix it this is the action items we’re going to take it feels like to me what I want is a a powerbi report page where I can use bookmarks to save a selected State and add what I would like to call posted notes on top of the screen I would like to Post-It note a comment or a thread of comments directly on the screen it’s almost like the commenting feature of the PowerBar reports but something where I can go in and say okay notice right here Arrow
7:10 and say okay notice right here Arrow this data doesn’t look correct okay I’m going to do XYZ things to improve this piece of information and then all of that context is saved in the in the context of the bookmark and that way when you click on hey here’s points number one two three and four for this page of the report as you click on the these quote unquote bookmarks the comments appear you have all the information that you need to have you information that you need to have like the the additional context know like the the additional context that other users are adding so I make the report I give it to Tommy Tommy
7:41 the report I give it to Tommy Tommy opens up the report he makes a couple bookmarks in those bookmarks he just adds a little Post-It note and says here’s here’s the Post-it note for this in context here’s what we’re going to do yes we know it’s down sorry we’re going to fix it we’re adding new sales people here’s what we’re going to do we lost a major client that’s why this is down right we’re going to add a new client here here whatever you add context specifically to that part of the page and then you could have one two three or four key points of what you’re going to resolve around those kpis or data and then you go to the business and say okay
8:11 then you go to the business and say okay those business leads are not going to review this with people that’s what I think I would like to see the question here is how do you do it because I don’t know I could be off like that might not be the right context for what we need here to solution because there is some things that do this like I can do bookmarks I can add comments to a report I can go on my phone or tablet and draw on the screen and make bubbles and make comments there as well with bookmarks but it’s not fully seamless
8:41 bookmarks but it’s not fully seamless and integrated the way I think this user is expecting it to be done I find it interesting too that and I just highlighted here in the question that I like the process this user has to is like one of the each business unit has a marketing lead and it’s surprising to me that this is coming from marketing whose job it is to explain to the business uniters the metrics and context around why certain metrics are low and high and what are they’re doing this feels like this feels
9:11 they’re doing this feels like this feels like search to me like so this has a smell of like web search marketing like so the marketing team would show up to do like hey our web searches and sales are down on this product because XYZ things and that’s maybe that’s why I’m thinking like marketing is involved here as opposed to like a different department that feels or smells a little bit like we’re doing like web search stuff or or Google analytics type information or it’s like the finance report marke business units a dozen different business cont the or
9:43 different business cont the or sales right because if the context of like what what marketing efforts or what Mark what to your point right if marketing is the owner of all of the data that’s going out to sites orated even around Black Friday right like we sold a buch of products why dip that context for the business
10:07 that context for the business units that own the products or whatever the case that’s what that’s how it kind the case that’s what that’s how it reads we could be way off of reads we could be way off but we’re just gonna assume that that’s what we’re talking about here other thoughts Tommy you were making a point there and I’m thinking about this because it’s also not just a like your first idea is like oh just having a reference page on those metrics and what they mean but these are snapshots for a monthly basis right so you there’s a lot what we’re really needing here is not just imagery it’s text reference text around whether it’s
10:39 text reference text around whether it’s the metrics or the visuals but for that time not just what the metric X means but it’s two teams though like so there’s one team building the data and the snapshots here’s the report where I think this is different is there’s a handoff there’s a handoff from that team to another team that says look we’ve completed the snapshots now add your language context like add the text around why this is what it is and I think that’s the part that’s missing here right in powerbi the way we have it today we have some ability to do this
11:09 today we have some ability to do this where we can make a bookmark and we can add comments to it right that that would potentially solve some of this need potentially but then how do you present it out to those business those business unit leads right so then what’s that effect happen like how do you do that and I don’t think the commenting experience the way we have it today actually meets that need does that make sense yeah and there’s no that I’m aware of there’s no easy visual that I can just drop things on the page and say oh here’s here’s where here’s where data
11:40 here’s here’s where here’s where data went weird here’s where things so let me so I do this is where maybe my mind has been tainted by these other tools not tools not PowerPoint Miro is an amazing tool that I like to use it’s great for whiteboarding it’s great for having dashboards I would love an experience where you can embed a powerb report use bookm markings with that report and have the ability of like an entire page of reports that have different bookmarks attached to them where you can add the
12:10 attached to them where you can add the context that you need very easily by making hitting this bookmark and adding these these these flavors of context it it feels to me like we need a whiteboard on top of the report to get the context we want I’m going to argue on the PowerPoint slide here and especially with all the up dates that have been going on true okay with the features here PowerPoint does do snapshotting now so you can do snapshots now in very different right so and if you actually think of this workflow so imagine a world for this user where
12:42 imagine a world for this user where we’re we have to put these monthly snapshots together there are already the reports that we have but they’re probably some bookmarks for each business unit that is going to be for that part particular month well in the PowerPoint Plugin or the powerbi plugin for PowerPoint I can save a snapshot it doesn’t have to be a previously created bookmark I do this in my dashore day demo where we demonstrate using the report and I click on Germany we drill through and that saves the state of it and I’m doing that all on PowerPoint not
13:13 and I’m doing that all on PowerPoint not powerbi and then the slides show goes through that so we can have those PowerPoints already created that have either hey current month business Unit A so that marketing team goes into the the new month PowerPoint which is already filtered for the current month for that business unit and then they be could begin to add as you filter that report I can pilot Spotlight a visual and then we can add the reference there the marketing team
13:44 reference there the marketing team doesn’t have to worry about doing all these filterings and what do I have to do to get that particular metric and you want to talk about automation well particular visuals I’m basically building a report here for the snapshot for the PowerPoint off the same model now the business unit goes through and says hey this is the trending chart that we always show the reason why it’s down this month as you can see yada y yada or and so forth and so forth hey this is our looking at our top five campaigns this is why for this month
14:16 campaigns this is why for this month it’s already pre-filtered because it’s saving that state for that business unit so yeah why wouldn’t that work pretty effectively in terms of yeah there might be a more ideal state but for what we’re talking about here I don’t know like that sounds like is it would be especially for what they’re we’re looking for here the collaboration the Automation and giving that context is all pretty darn available here with not not a lot of
14:47 available here with not not a lot of buildup or not a lot of buried entry or work to be done to actually get that set up so so work me through what your mental state is your mental process is here on this one so I’m going to interpret what I think you said into a process that may work and i’ be curious your thoughts on this one so you’re saying build the report in parbi build it in a way that allows snapshots to occur right so that means and one thing
15:10 occur right so that means and one thing I think we’re glazing over here in this question is how does the snapshots work inside powerbi so you have to basically load the data pick a snapshot and then the data represents itself as that snapshot right that’s that’s a bit more of a complex data model yeah that needs to exist so assuming we’ve got that dialed in we now have a report that can have snapshots in it those snapshots then are loaded to PowerPoint you pick the snapshot you want and then you shrink the powerbi visual and you add the additional you
15:40 visual and you add the additional you visual and you add the additional marketing context on the know marketing context on the PowerPoint slide so process build report load data put data inside PowerPoint slide deck send s PowerPoint slide deck over to the marketing team tell them to add comments as they need on there and then that now becomes the new slide deck you move out to the to the business and say okay now we’re going to present on this all the slides have now snapshotted data with the comments the commentary that actually talks and speaks to the
16:11 that actually talks and speaks to the different data points is that what communicating you’re basically spot on and rather than sending it could be in SharePoint too it’s like hey in our in your business a marketing folder the you your business a marketing folder the the latest PowerPoints ready to know the latest PowerPoints ready to go basically and that PowerPoint is just a template with everything with powerbi preconfigured like enter your notes Here enter the description here sure yeah but then that that you’re just describing the solution that they’re already using yeah I think they’re looking for potentially other areas of how they would implement this one maybe they
16:41 would implement this one maybe they don’t know about the additional features though of those snapshots of what you can do saving those States it it sounds like snapshot has not being a part of their solution but that might be part of it or that it’s a problem or it doesn’t work well for them yeah what they’re asking is what else can we do oh oh talking three heads if you guys hate PowerPoint so much what is a what is a better better solution what is a better tool tool to use what it I’m I’m brain farting this morning for for obvious reasons but like
17:12 morning for for obvious reasons but like we we just obviously car on for we’re talking about metrics is okay so to your point here Seth I I like what you’re doing here because I thought the metrics Hub so one thing that triggered in my mind here karly’s doing something a little bit different she’s doing metric sets metric sets I think metric Hub Hub though the metric Hub is this solution though so this is yeah I think if it’s I think I think it’s certainly a Next Step because even in my mind if where where’re a lot of
17:45 in my mind if where where’re a lot of these conversations go and I I personally can’t get past the PowerPoint one because I do think it’s a good it’s a good presentation tool for exactly this use case and I know my wife uses it and she does analysis all the time right she’s working in the report finds a very interesting nugget or has to like create the narrative for the month and snapshots those and from the report itself and it’s it’s about the analysis of the value that the report is
18:16 analysis of the value that the report is providing and then adds the context for why why did my value go from here to here or from there there to there right or why up or down exactly what this is describing yes so I I do think it’s a still a good representation here’s the data here’s what it’s showing here’s the here’s the subject matter expert value behind it that you get because I’m the marketing person I know where I think that conversation needs to evolve from an organizational perspective if it hasn’t already is that context so while
18:49 hasn’t already is that context so while while this question is pointed at is there a better way to present that data I don’t know of one what I think enhances this what I I think enhances this is what are you doing with the outcome of this presentation because if the context to why a data point is the way it is and there’s a reason and we’re tracking something obviously on a snapshot snapshot basis is that going back into the report is that is that now part of it so
19:21 report is that is that now part of it so that as these things change we understand that like we’ve done the analysis and and there we expect ups and downs if I can’t track that directly in the report can I track it in a metric right where contextually if we’re looking at a time series thing these marketing people can do two things one is the PowerPoint and the other is hey update for this the explanation is whatever and we can now say the
19:51 whatever and we can now say the dip was a result of this and this we should the the metric outcome changes to X % right like because then our objective has changed because of business changes which happens all the time but where are we keeping track of that and that’s where I think from a data perspective in reporting like Etc
20:13 data perspective in reporting like Etc is more challenging for organizations because I see it all the time is they lose they lose context and then you end up having the same conversation six months from now right where it’s like why wait a minute somebody else had got a little pressure because our original goal was 100% and now you guys are saying it’s only 90 well why is it only 90 well are you digging through PowerPoint slide decks or are you looking at the report or some mechanism
20:44 looking at the report or some mechanism potentially metrics that would show you marketing came in on our monthly meeting and and the standard update is there is an update from this meeting on each metric for each business unit every month and we can see in August that marketing is telling us we didn’t get the engagement that we needed so we’re not going to like we can’t achieve our 100% goal it’s always it’s going to be 90 now but that’s reflected in our yearly metric
21:16 that’s reflected in our yearly metric so let me draw I like what you’re saying here Seth a lot and I think when I heard this question one of the the key points came up to me around the metrics Hub was very relevant here and one thing I think is a challenge I’m going to and anticipate a challenge that this user maybe has that they’re not necessarily looking at or thinking about based on this question but it’s probably there what happens when you have multiple months of reviews of this on the same kpi so for example if we have three or four or five kpis that are important to
21:46 four or five kpis that are important to us that kpi is you’re either getting closer or you’re getting farther away from that kpi whatever that may be that’s exactly what a metric set should be doing or metric a metric should be doing it should be getting closer or farther away from a a set goal of what you care about right one of the things that I think is a challenging because we because the way the user doing it today is we’re going to PowerPoint those insights or comments are now locked into a PowerPoint slide deck so if you now want to Trend that kpi point for the last three four five months hey what did
22:17 last three four five months hey what did you say in March what did you say in April it’s now June did we make did we did we get it done like what does that look like and I don’t know if the PowerPoint slide is actually going to be able to convey that that time bound knowledge input across all those kpis so in my mind now I’m thinking well maybe metric sets are the way to go or metric Hub is the way to go because then you could say here’s the data point I’m going to capture the snapshot I’m going to make comments or allow other users to
22:47 to make comments or allow other users to have access to those metrics okay this metric is down add comments and you can add comments to that that data point Tommy could add some Seth could add some and the neat part about this is it’s all tracked inside a database so now you can actually go open up that metric set and say look we want to see the trend of data point comments over time who made them and what happened in March April May June and you could Trend the comments and track them holistically so
23:18 comments and track them holistically so maybe if I’m stepping back here and saying look we’re doing snapshot snapshots of data but really what we should be focusing on is the single kpi and tracking its single snapshots if we change our mindset mindset here slightly we might get better data and better engagement by using the the kpis in metric sets or metrics to really give us what we really want which is a trend in time of that kpi tracking to a goal and then every time it changes what’s happening what is marketing going to go
23:48 happening what is marketing going to go do at that time to make it better or worse so I I think may maybe in total I’ll re restate and say if if I was going to look for a potential alternative solution that actually may be better than this yeah I’d look into metrics and see whether or not it fits the same business need for around those conversations yes and I don’t know like regardless maybe it’s a combination of like hey here’s
24:19 it’s a combination of like hey here’s contextually a one slider right but we’re spending the majority of our time when we talk about the data in the metric metric or the scorecard or the manual input that is being adjusted on a monthly basis yes and and that’s being somehow driven back into the report so that you have the context anybody in the business can look and see like how are we doing against whatever the objective of marketing had is or you the objective of marketing had is or whatever context they’re providing know whatever context they’re providing yeah because then it’s available to a
24:50 yeah because then it’s available to a wider audience I think that’s the the larger challenge in here too which is okay having all these conversations in the business units but what do you like a lot of those business cross collaborate right do they need to understand what’s going on or why and and I think that could be another potential solution to consolidate that and instantly Grant other people access to the information that you’re having in all these other side
25:17 you’re having in all these other side meetings what do you think Tommy I think you were going to say something in there I’m not sure at least with the the metric sets and I love the I love metric sets but we know oh we know go you love goals and now you love metrics and now you love metric sets which to be honest I haven’t played enough with metric sets to really be like an opinion on it so I’m very excited for it I just haven’t spent enough time playing with metric sets we’re talking more about metrics or I think it was originally called goals it’s get a little confusing from a snapshot point of view like the
25:48 from a snapshot point of view like the the metric set I don’t know if that’s going to be the best place because you want to again the the goal of this or the the the problem statement here is per a given month and a given team we need to have context around why that number is the way it is for that month and what’s be going to to address it the metric sets are a great place for the really that final place that we have for a glossery or the Lexicon of what our metrics are like how do we Define them who’s in charge of the
26:19 Define them who’s in charge of the responsibilities but it’s not so much as from a micro point of view on a again given unit in month for that time to and also have that log of have we done in the past correct right score scorecard the scorecards yeah would be I I guess better too one of the things that we did in the past is with using the scanner API we actually created a data catalog where if a new d like report or data set was
26:49 a new d like report or data set was created we’ actually add this to lexon you would add your descriptions and the stakeholders and this information that people could search through in a power app and that was somewhat a great goal and then you could actually see the change log of that report but it’s hard it’s and this is not a easy simple Sol I think both because mainly what is that best flow what does like that whole like storyboard look like and I think that’s still the
27:20 look like and I think that’s still the hardest thing not honestly not so much the technical side of implementing it like where’s the platform people go to what does that actual UI look like and I think again like what is that storyboard going through yeah I have to so this is where I think I’m a little bit torn here because I think this exact user solution it doesn’t quite exist I think Microsoft is trying to solve this problem in many different ways chatting about a a dashboard in teams potential solution
27:52 a dashboard in teams potential solution using metrics to track a kpi over time also very relevant you can you can apply owners you can give out distribution of who’s responsible for what kpi again I think that’s a solution but I’m not sure if this is going to fit exactly their process so maybe they have to like slightly adjust their process so it actually starts adjusting into what this process look like all this to say I think this is a great question I think there are many options out there one thing I just will I will note is I don’t think there’s a perfect solution to
28:22 think there’s a perfect solution to match exactly this use case I would if I were looking at this one and saying look if I want to walk away from PowerPoint I think what you have right now in PowerPoint is probably the best solution you’re going to get there’s probably nothing better than that if you use other tools like Meo you can I frame Ed things into Meo but they there’s some caveats there you don’t get the same level of security that you would with a secure Ed ey frame for other aspects so you would still have to have people sign in they still need to have access to power. com right I think part of this is we’re trying to do everything in PowerPoint and and highlight what’s
28:53 in PowerPoint and and highlight what’s going on in these snapshots so all that being said I think I would and recommend looking at metrics and see if that if that fits but there is St strong keep on with PowerPoint stay strong point I love it with that we just want to say thank you very much for listening to us this is a great question we really appreciate the community deeply engaging with questions around powerbi things that we should be thinking about so hopefully this gave some insight to maybe some new opportunities you can go look at inside
29:23 opportunities you can go look at inside the PBI service maybe metrics would be fitting to your solution as well so check them out there’s lots of good documentation on them go play with them I think it’s an underused feature of powerbi at this point and probably needs to be used more Tommy and I’ve been saying that since it came out so I think it’s a good solution now that being said thank you for your time we appreciate your ears we know you could be doing a million other things with that we want to say thank you Tommy where else can you find the podcast you can find us on Apple Spotify or wherever you at your podcast make sure to
29:53 you at your podcast make sure to subscribe and leave a rating it helps us out a ton do you have a question or idea or topic that you want us to talk about a future episode head over to powerbi tips podcast leave your name and a great question and finally join us live every Tuesday and Thursday a. m. Central and join the conversation on all powerb tips social media channels awesome thank you all so much we appreciate your time and we’ll see you next time next time [Music]
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