1. Explore feature and unlocking insights
Let’s take a detailed look at the Explore feature. Imagine you have a well-organized report and model, but a hunch sparks your curiosity. Explore lets you delve deeper into your data on the fly!
So for that, we’ll click on the "Explore" icon within the report, and it will open the Explore pane for you.
This is the Explore pane, which will show you all the attributes in your data model on the right. All these fields on the right can be used to drag and drop on the canvas for your ad-hoc analysis!
Let's drag "Profit" into the "Values" area and "Date" into the "Rows" area, and you’ll see the data on the table above and the same in the form of a line chart at the bottom.
Watch as dragging and dropping fields create an instant visualization below. Here, we created a line chart showing Profit by date. Explore lets you experiment with different combinations of fields to see various data perspectives quickly without creating an actual report.
Let’s take a look and understand some more benefits of Explore.
So it's pretty easy to start your ad-hoc exploration of data using Explore; as you can see here, I can put multiple fields in the visual, and we can even drill-down to next-level granularity.
Another good thing is that the exploration is not limited to us. The major advatage of using this feature is that it helps in sharing our analysis quickly with your colleagues.
Now it's important for you to understand the limitations of Explore as well.
While powerful, Explore has certain limitations; like visualizations here aren't permanent reports. They're for exploration, not a final Power BI report, and the formatting is also limited. Explore is fantastic for initial exploration, but you'll want to transition to building reports for final presentations and in-depth analysis.
As we are discussing the visualizations, it's worth mentioning the visual marketplace. Here, you can find custom, pre-built visualizations beyond the standard Power BI offerings. These can unlock even more creative ways to present your data, offering unique and interactive formats.
To install any custom visual in a report, click on the three ellipses on the visualization pane here when your report is in Edit mode and then select ‘Get more visuals’, and you will have all the custom visuals available here. Most of them are free, with some in-app purchases. Feel free to explore them and use them in your own work.
That’s all for this video; let’s work on a few exercises now.
2. Let's practice!