Using Bookmarks, Tooltips, and Drillthroughs

Using bookmarks, tooltips, and drillthroughs in Power BI significantly enhance interactivity, storytelling, and detailed data exploration within reports.

These features allow users to navigate complex datasets smoothly, access contextual information efficiently, and customize their experience to fit individual analytical needs.

By leveraging bookmarks, report creators can save specific views or filter states to guide users through data narratives. Tooltips provide additional data insights on hover without cluttering the visual space.

Drillthroughs enable deeper dives into focused data subsets from summary visuals, supporting layered analysis without overwhelming the main report page.

Together, these tools foster engaging, user-centric reports that balance high-level overview and granular detail. 

Bookmarks in Power BI

The purpose of bookmarks id to save the current state of a report page including filters, slicers, visibility, and drillthrough states.

Uses:

1. Create guided data stories or presentations with predefined sequences.

2. Toggle between different views like summary and detailed analysis.

3. Build navigation menus using bookmarks linked to buttons or images.

Creating Bookmarks:

1. Configure the desired page state.

2. Use the Bookmarks pane to add a new bookmark and name it descriptively.

3. Control what the bookmark captures—filters, visuals, spotlight, etc.

Tooltips in Power BI

The purpose is to show additional contextual data when users hover over data points in visuals without cluttering the report canvas.

Types:

1. Default Tooltips: Automatically generated with basic information from fields.

2. Report Page Tooltips: Custom-designed report pages used as enhanced tooltips with rich visuals and interactivity.

Best Practices:

1. Use concise and relevant information to complement visuals.

2. Design tooltip pages with clear layouts and avoid overloading.

3. Enable modern tooltips for enhanced formatting and interactions.

Drillthroughs in Power BI

The purpose is to enable users to navigate from summary level data to detailed report pages filtered by the selected data point.

Use Cases:

1. From a sales dashboard, drill through on a region to see detailed sales by city.

2. Access transaction-level details from aggregated KPIs.

Setting Up Drillthroughs:

1. Create a dedicated drillthrough page with one or more fields added to the Drillthrough filter pane.

2. Add a drillthrough button or use the right-click context menu in source visuals.

3. Optionally enable "Keep all filters" to retain slicer selections.

Combined Usage Tips

1. Use bookmarks together with drillthrough to create seamless, multi-page report experiences.

2. Supplement drillthrough pages with tooltips for instant contextual insights without leaving the page.

3. Add clear navigation buttons and instructions to guide users through bookmark sequences and drillthrough paths.

4. Regularly test interactivity to ensure filters and bookmarks behave as expected, avoiding confusion.