In this article we will show you two ways you can create an information button in Power BI.
Information buttons are useful to give an explanation of a visual or page on your report. We will show you two different ways to add them in Power BI.
The first method uses a tooltip and a card you can hover over to display your information.
The second method uses bookmarks to create a popup you can use to display your information.
Method 1: Create a tooltip page and information card
Step 1: Add a new page for your tooltip
Firstly you will need to create a new page in your Power BI report that will be used as your tooltip.
Then, go to the Visualizations pane on that page, go to Format page and open the ‘Canvas settings’.
Now, select the ‘Type’ as tooltip and this will resize your page to 240 px by 320 px.
This is important so that when you hover over your information button, it will display the right-size text box.
While you are still in the visualizations pane, go to ‘Page information’ and toggle the ‘Allow use as tooltip’ option to ‘on’.
Now, when you hover over your information button on your Power BI report, it will show this page you have created.
In this example, we are adding a text box to our tooltip page so that we can give an explanation of a visual on our report page.
Here is what our tooltip page looks like:
Step 2: Create a measure for your information icon
The next step is to create the information icon that you will hover over on your report page.
One way of doing this is to create a measure and use the UNICHAR DAX function to generate an icon.
Then, add a card visual and select the measure you created.
Here are some examples of icons you could use for your information button:
Here are the UNICHAR codes you can use to create these icons. You can copy and paste these as measures into your Power BI report:
Info Icon = UNICHAR(128712)Notepad = UNICHAR(128221)Person = UNICHAR(128129)Pinpoint = UNICHAR(128205)Writing = UNICHAR(9997)X = UNICHAR(128473)Step 3: Add a card to your report
Once you have created a measure for the information icon you want, you will then need to add a card to your report.
In our example, we have added a card to the bottom left of this graph. This information button will display the explanation of the graph that we added to our tooltip page.
Once you have added the card to your report, go to Format visual > General > Tooltips > Options and select the tooltip page you created in step 1.
Here are the tooltip settings in our example:
Result
Once you have completed all three steps above, you will have an information button in your Power BI report that displays information from your tooltip page when you hover over it.
You can change what is on your tooltip page at any point and your information button will update to reflect this.
Here is a gif showing how the hover information button works in our example report:
Method 2: Use bookmarks and an information button
Step 1: Add a text box and buttons to your report
The first step in this method is to add the buttons you want to use to show and hide your information pop-up, as well as the visual you want to use for the popup itself.
In our example, we have chosen to use a notepad icon as the information button (the same as in the first method) and a text box as the popup.
We have also added a X (or cross icon) behind the notepad icon. This will be used to hide the information popup.
Here is what our example report looks like with the information popup shown:
You can find how to create these icons in step 2 of the first method in this article.
When you add these to your report, rather than adding a card visual, you need to use a button instead. This can be found in ‘Insert’ in the top ribbon and then under ‘Buttons’.
There is an option here to choose an information button if you do not want to use any of the icons listed in this article.
If you do want to use one of the icons, however, then create a blank button. Then, in the button settings, go to Style > Text and click the ‘fx’ button. Then choose the measure you have created for your icon.
Step 2: Create two bookmarks and configure the settings
You need to use bookmarks to show and hide the information popup.
To do this, firstly create two bookmarks. Open the bookmarks pane from ‘View’ on the top ribbon if it is not already showing, then add two bookmarks.
Rename these to show/hide so you can distinguish between them more easily.
Then, ensure that the following settings are selected for each bookmark as below:
This will mean that only the popup is affected, and any other visuals or filters will not be changed when showing or hiding your information popup.
Step 3: Update bookmarks using the selections pane
Now you need to update your bookmarks to show and hide your information pop up.
To do this, open the ‘Selection’ pane. You can find this in the ‘View’ ribbon at the top of Power BI.
For your ‘Show’ bookmark, you want to hide your information button in the selections pane, then select it along with your X button and your popup, then update the bookmark. See below:
For your ‘Hide’ bookmark, you want to reverse the selection and hide the popup and X button and show the information button (notepad icon in our example). Make sure these are all selected and click ‘update’ on the bookmark. See below.
Step 4: Apply bookmark actions to buttons
Finally, you want to apply the bookmarks to your information button and your X button.
Select the buttons, go to ‘Action’ and choose Bookmark and then the correct bookmark.
In our example, our information (notepad/open popup) button has the ‘Show Bar Chart Info’ bookmark selected and our X (close popup) button has the ‘Hide Bar Chart Info’ bookmark selected.
Result
Once you have completed all four steps above in this method, you will have an information button in your Power BI report that opens a popup when you click it, and a button that hides it too.
Here is a gif showing how the popup information button works in our example report:
