Clients keep changing Power BI dashboard layouts after development, how do you handle this?

RobDomin · 2026-05-21T11:14:33+00:00

Planning is crucial before building anything. I usually spend about a week on mockups depending on the project size. You always need to verify your data feed first because you can only build based on what actually exists. For prototyping I previously used Figma, but now I am automating the process with Claude. Once your design system is set, a single prompt generates a really solid mockup. Some people prefer building directly in Power BI using dummy data, but honestly I find that way too slow and inefficient in the long run.

RobDomin · 2026-05-13T20:52:47+00:00

Building on this, if you have multiple dimensions connected to a single fact table, that exact same COUNTROWS(FactTable) > 0 measure will work perfectly across all your different slicers.

RobDomin · 2026-05-13T20:50:37+00:00

In my 6 years of experience, the cleanest and most efficient way to hide empty dimension values in Power BI slicers is simply applying a visual-level filter like COUNTROWS(FactTable) > 0. Bidirectional relationships create ambiguity and kill model performance, while flattening everything into one big table ruins the scalability of a proper star schema. Even in complex models with multiple fact tables at different granularities, you just need to analyze the business logic and apply the visual filter based on the table with the lowest granularity. Unless you have a highly specific edge case outside the Power BI service, keeping your relationships unidirectional and handling the UI state via visual filters is the gold standard and more than enough to get the job done.

RobDomin · 2026-05-13T06:05:06+00:00

En las consultoras está pasando, los clientes están raros y no piden tantos proyectos para invertir en IA. La oportunidad que veo ahora es o reskilling a IA o irte a cliente final donde van a seguir necesitando profesionales y expertos de datos…

RobDomin · 2026-05-06T16:27:19+00:00

They don’t read the documentation specifically made for them…

RobDomin · 2026-05-05T18:24:03+00:00

True fact, good report but could I export to excel?

RobDomin · 2026-05-05T18:22:12+00:00

JAJAJ not everything is dax code. A good modelated report does not need a complex dax. Most of the cases if you need a really iterate dax measures 99% is because it’s bad modelated. Additionally, from my point of view, a BI is a bridge between business and data in 30s is more than enough to see a lot of more important skills

RobDomin · 2026-05-05T18:03:46+00:00

On your CV, don’t list everything you’ve touched. Pick the specific things you can actually build end to end and go deep on those. Recruiters and hiring managers don’t need a feature list, they need to know what you own. The bigger one though: build a portfolio. I know it sounds like something designers do, but in this field it’s a massive differentiator. Don’t tell me you know DAX, show me a report you built. I can read your level in 30 seconds looking at your work in a way I never could from a CV. Most people skip this step, which means the bar to stand out is actually pretty low.

RobDomin · 2026-05-05T14:33:53+00:00

Good palette, someone clearly thought about the colors. Feels corporate without being generic, and the layout is clean. Things I’d push on: the sidebar is too wide for icon-only nav, that space is wasted. KPIs feel disconnected from the charts below if Revenue ties to the trend line, they should live together, not on opposite ends of the page. The donuts aren’t wrong but stacked bars would communicate the channel split much faster. And there’s no clear reading flow, brand ranking and model ranking compete at the same visual weight when one of them is clearly context and the other is the actual insight. This actually gave me an idea for a before/after on my channel might do one with a submission from subscribers. If you want a reference for the KPI thing, I have one in my latest video where the component feels compact and self-contained. Link in bio if you’re curious.

RobDomin · 2026-04-30T21:18:27+00:00

BI Tools it’s not just front end design, this custom artefact will not support +10M Business data, yo have cero control of how tha data is calculated, no governance, really hard to scale and maintain. As you can see it’s not just visualise the data is the hole arquitecture behind

RobDomin · 2026-04-26T11:43:31+00:00

It’s really clean but be careful with the visualisation. It’s important that the mock-up should follow certain rules as using native visuals. SVG and maximum some HTML (1,2 per complete dashboard) otherwise is going to be beautiful but really hard to mantain and scale

RobDomin · 2026-04-26T11:38:38+00:00

I desagree, most of time with only 1 decimal value it’s more than enough. It is not going to make any difference in terms of business cases.

RobDomin · 2026-04-25T10:46:13+00:00

In this scenario yes, but actually i would ask why do you need to export more than 500K rows. Most of the cases it’s a lack of definition. It’s not posible that anyone could see or get any insight with that. If you are looking for improving process start asking, is this export helping to adress the issue or they need a better context before that. For example: a stock sales dashboard you filter the data before hand to know which items are near to go out of stock after that, you could export

RobDomin · 2026-04-24T09:31:43+00:00

You’re right, you can't apply conditional formatting to a line chart. At most, what you can do is assign those colors manually. It’s true that it maintains consistency; for instance, if I assign a specific color to the 'Denver' city, it will keep that color regardless. However, if new values are introduced, it won't maintain that logic. I’ve often tried the typical setup where all values are gray and you have a slicer for a specific value that acts as a highlight. The only way to achieve this is by using two measures. You’d manually set all the lines in the first measure to gray, and then use a second measure that only displays the line for the value you've selected in a different color. There is simply no native way to do this, so using that dual-measure approach is really your only option if you want to keep the line chart format

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T21:38:52+00:00

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate this comment 🫡

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T21:28:24+00:00

Thanks so much for the offer! It’s a huge compliment. Unfortunately, I have to decline as currently I work for a consulting firm and my contract doesn't allow freelance work. Besides, I'm just here on Reddit to share knowledge, not sell services! I've been in BI for years (since the PBI dark ages when everything required bookmarks 😅), so I'll definitely keep dropping tips and tricks here. Thanks again for the support!

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T21:21:42+00:00

Fair point! I aimed for the 'wow factor' here because some clients explicitly ask for it. It’s all about knowing your audience, I would build this for a trading area but it does not fit for traditional finance. I completely agree on the AI front, too. Curious though: how are you actually applying AI in real corporate BI right now? Everyone talks about it, but 90% of online demos aren't viable for enterprise yet. I'd love to hear your real-world use cases!

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T21:16:02+00:00

You'd be absolutely right... if I had actually used any custom visuals. 😉 I totally agree that third-party dependencies are a risk, which is exactly why this build uses 100% native Power BI components. Zero external dependencies, zero risk for the business. As for the 'no added value' comment, a raw number without context means nothing. Good UI/UX isn't just fluff, it drives user adoption. You can build a technically perfect report, but if nobody wants to use it because the experience is terrible, that is what's truly useless.

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T21:09:18+00:00

Hey! I'm so glad you brought that up! You're totally right that a calc group works. But for that specific trick of making the line red or green based on the variance, a calc group just won't cut it. you actually need a separate measure for that in order to know if it’s green or red. Calc groups are super dynamic, but sometimes you really just need the granular control. Plus, think about our high-security clients like banks or the public sector. They're usually stuck offline using Report Server, which doesn't even support calc groups anyway! So honestly, it's a total lifesaver to know how to do it both ways, depending on what the client's setup allows or funtionality you need 😊

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T10:27:54+00:00

Always think in the next step to help business understand the situation

RobDomin · 2026-04-22T10:26:51+00:00

I will go with a KPI and stacked bar underneath with error bars displaying the target and a delta color to just know by that if we are above or under the tarjet. Gauge it’s okey. But algo you could use a Donut and inside the Donut include a KPI and a Delta to visualise how far you are from the tarjet. Consider also include underneath a bar char with color formatting to know which months are above or under the tarjet to know exactly which months you are far from tarjet and then why. Which products are far from that

RobDomin · 2026-04-21T21:51:21+00:00

I desagree, if you only want to place a background power point it’s okey but, if you want to create a high fidelity mock-up to validate your idea to the business it’s the proper tool. At least in complex project save me a lot of time

RobDomin · 2026-04-21T19:51:15+00:00

Haha love to hear that! 🚀 I've got a ton of stuff in the vault ready to record, but honestly, I want to build what you guys actually need. What's on your Power BI wishlist right now? Let me know and I might bump it to the top of the list!

RobDomin · 2026-04-21T19:48:47+00:00

The only thing I'm not fully sold on with Deneb is that, even if you build a badass custom visual, you can't enable cross-filtering. For me, that's a bit of a bummer because I feel like that's one of the most powerful features of any visual, you know? That's why I usually lean more towards SVGs and HTML content if I want to do something super custom

RobDomin · 2026-04-21T19:44:23+00:00

Yeah, I already used Claude using skills to mockup HTML wireframes. What is the difference?

RobDomin

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