How to create Narrative in PowerBI

In this blog, we’ll learn How to Create a Narrative in PowerBI. Firstly, we have to understand what is it and when should we use it.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Narrative in PowerBI

Narrative: It allows users to create text-based stories in their reports. This helps explain the steps taken during the analysis, the results obtained, and any important factors discovered. This visual enable user to describe their findings directly within the report, providing context and detailed explanations.

Dataset description

This dataset comprises sales statistics pertaining to a retail enterprise. The information encompasses transactional data, which comprises specific details about products, sales numbers, and customer information recorded over a period of time.

You can access the dataset here.

Column Name	Description
Date	The date on which the sales transaction occurred.
Product	The name or identification of the product sold.
Quantity	The number of units of the product sold in the transaction.
Price	The unit price of the product at the time of the transaction.
Rate	The rate of the product after applying any discounts.
Discount	The discount applied to the product during the sale, either in percentage or monetary value.
Customer	The name or unique ID of the customer making the purchase.
Location	The geographical location (city, region, or country) where the transaction took place.
Total Sale	The total sales value for the transaction, calculated as `Quantity * Rate`.
Total Profit	The total profit generated from the transaction, calculated after deducting the cost of the goods sold from the total sales.
Target Sale	The sales target set for the transaction, which could be used to assess performance against goals.

Sample of Data:

Procedure to create Narrative in PowerBI

Step1: Open your PowerBI Desktop on your Device

Step2: Click on Get Data button in Home Ribbon and select Text/CSV.

Step3: Open Prompt box will be open to select your text or csv file.

Step4: After selection of dataset, It will pop up a window for Load OR Transform Data. Click on Load to use data on PowerBI.

Step5: In the following picture, data has been loaded successfully.

Step6: Select from Visualizations Section (Right Hand Side).

Step7: Here, you can write anything for the entire report or particular visual:

Note: You can use this narrative for other visual and entire report. After that you have to click on format your visual. Go to the General click on turn on visual border and the shadow.

Example:

In Visual Section,

Colors 🡪 Gaming Laptop = #118DFF
Colors 🡪 Gaming Console = #E044A7
Colors 🡪 Gaming Monitor = #AD5129
Colors 🡪 Smartphone = #E1C233
Colors 🡪 VR Headset = #7BD520
Category labels 🡪 Values = Bold

In General Section,

Title 🡪 Title 🡪 Text = Top 5 Most Selling Product
Effect 🡪 Visual border = ON
Effect 🡪 Visual border 🡪 Rounded corners = 10 px
Shadow = ON

For Narrative: In General Section,

Effect 🡪 Background 🡪 Color = #12239E
Effect 🡪 Visual border 🡪 Color = #12239E
Effect 🡪 Visual border 🡪 Rounded corners = 10 px
Effect 🡪 Shadow = On
Effect 🡪 Shadow 🡪 Color = #12239E

Conclusion

With Narrative, we can create text-based stories within their reports. This helps explain the steps taken during the analysis, the results obtained, and any important factors discovered. Visual enables users to narrate their findings directly within the report, providing context and detailed explanations.

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