Custom Visuals in Power BI: create or import new visuals

Understanding Power BI Custom Visuals and Their Benefits

Power BI comes loaded with a variety of standard visualizations, but sometimes those just aren’t enough—especially if your organization has very specific reporting needs. That’s where custom visuals in Power BI really shine. They let you go beyond the basics, so you can tailor how you present and analyze data in ways that make more sense for your team or your industry. Custom visuals are great for illustrating complex relationships, supporting unique business processes, and making your reports more interactive and visually appealing.

It’s worth considering that in industries like healthcare, finance, or manufacturing, the requirements for data presentations can be pretty strict. Maybe you need to follow certain regulations, or you have internal standards that a standard chart just can’t meet. For instance, a healthcare provider might need a custom visual to track patient outcomes across multiple factors, something a regular chart can’t easily show. On the other hand, a financial analyst might need a specially formatted waterfall chart to meet audit requirements.

The real advantage of custom visuals in Power BI is how they help you deliver insights that are spot-on for your audience. You can adapt to specific industry needs and make your dashboards more user-friendly and impactful. With custom visuals, it’s easier to highlight trends, outliers, or key performance indicators (KPIs) that might get lost in a default chart. Plus, they can help with branding, compliance, and accessibility—areas where standard visuals sometimes fall short.

Something you should keep in mind is that custom visuals can play a big role in making your reports more accessible. For organizations that need to follow Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it’s important to have visuals that work with screen readers or offer high-contrast color schemes. And if your company is particular about branding, you can design visuals with the exact colors, fonts, and logos you want, keeping everything consistent across your business intelligence assets.

To truly maximize Power BI’s potential, consider integrating it with specialized power platform consulting services. Our expertise in harnessing Microsoft’s robust suite can help customize visuals that align with your specific business needs, ensuring data insights are both actionable and visually compelling.

Six Ways to Implement Custom Visuals in Power BI

MacGyvering Core Visuals for Quick Solutions

Sometimes, you don’t need advanced tools to get creative. Power BI’s built-in visuals and formatting options can be combined in clever ways—a strategy some folks call “MacGyvering.” This means mixing and matching existing charts, tweaking their properties, and layering visuals to mimic new types of data displays. You might use conditional formatting, play around with data labels, or overlay shapes and images. While this approach is limited by what Power BI offers out of the box, it’s accessible to everyone and doesn’t require any extra software or programming skills.

For example:

• Overlay a transparent shape on a bar chart to highlight a specific range.
• Combine a line chart and an area chart to create a custom performance indicator.

This method is especially handy for quick prototypes or in organizations where IT policies don’t allow the use of outside visuals.

Importing Certified Visuals from AppSource Marketplace

Microsoft’s AppSource marketplace is the go-to spot for certified Power BI custom visuals. Here, you can:

• Browse, search, and import visuals made by Microsoft, its partners, or the Power BI community.
• Filter visuals by category, popularity, or certification status.
• Identify certified visuals by a blue checkmark, confirming they’ve passed Microsoft’s quality and security tests.

Certified visuals go through Microsoft’s review process to make sure they meet standards for security, performance, and compatibility. For example, a logistics company might bring in a certified Gantt chart to track project timelines, confident that it meets enterprise security requirements.

Creating SVG Visuals with DAX Measures

If you want to get a bit more technical, you can create SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) visuals in Power BI by embedding SVG code right into your DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) measures. This lets you build highly customized, data-driven graphics. Usually, you’d design the SVG in an external tool and then use DAX to generate the SVG output based on your report data.

Common use cases include:

• Dynamic KPI cards that use custom icons or shapes to show performance thresholds.
• Manufacturing dashboards with custom SVG-based gauges that change color as production metrics shift in real time.

While you don’t need to be a programmer for this, you do need to understand how to manipulate SVG elements and tie them to DAX logic for dynamic updates.

Using Deneb for Declarative Visualization

Deneb is a certified custom visual in Power BI that lets you create sophisticated visuals using declarative specs based on Vega or Vega-Lite grammars. In a nutshell, you describe your visual in JSON format, and Deneb brings it to life. This is a great option if you want more flexibility than what standard visuals offer, but you’re not ready to build something from scratch.

Benefits of Deneb:

• Supports a wide range of chart types.
• Ideal for those with some background in data visualization.
• Makes it easy to prototype and share visual ideas using open-source grammars.
• Certified for Microsoft security and compliance standards.

For example, a data scientist could whip up a custom scatterplot matrix and share the JSON spec with colleagues for reuse.

Implementing Python and R Custom Visuals

Power BI lets you integrate Python and R scripts to create custom visuals, tapping into the vast libraries available for both languages—like matplotlib for Python or ggplot2 for R. This route is ideal if your team already knows Python or R, especially for advanced statistical or scientific charts.

Key points:

• Great for academic, research, or scientific settings needing specialized statistical plots (e.g., violin plots, heatmaps, regression diagnostics).
• May require enabling script execution in Power BI Desktop and installing necessary libraries.

For instance, a research group might use a custom R script to visualize clinical trial results with techniques you won’t find in standard Power BI visuals.

Developing JavaScript Custom Visuals with Visual API

If you want the ultimate in flexibility, you can build fully custom Power BI visuals using JavaScript or TypeScript with the Power BI Visuals API. This process involves:

• Setting up a development environment.
• Writing code to define how your visual looks and behaves.
• Packaging it for Power BI.
• Using libraries like D3.js for advanced graphics.

This method is best for organizations with developer resources and is the go-to option when none of the other methods quite fit your business or branding needs.

Examples:

• Proprietary or highly interactive visuals, like network graphs, custom maps, or animated dashboards.
• Retail analytics firms developing custom sales funnel visuals that animate in real time.

Developers need to follow Microsoft’s guidelines for API use, accessibility, and security, and can submit visuals for certification.

Step-by-Step Guide to Importing Custom Visuals

Importing from AppSource Marketplace

To bring in certified visuals from AppSource:

1. Open Power BI Desktop or the Power BI Service.
2. Go to the “Visualizations” pane and choose the option to import from the marketplace.
3. Browse or search for the visual you want.
4. Check its description and certification status.
5. Click “Add” to bring it into your report.
6. The visual will appear in your visualizations pane, ready to use.

Tips:

• Review user ratings, update history, and documentation before importing—especially for critical business tasks.
• AppSource provides links to vendor support and privacy policies for long-term reliability.

Installing Custom Visuals from Files

To install custom visuals from local files (usually with a .pbiviz extension):

1. Select “Import a visual from a file” in the Visualizations pane.
2. Find your file and confirm the import.
3. The visual will be ready to use in your current report.

Best practices:

• Ensure the visual’s source is trustworthy and compatible with your Power BI version.
• Keep an internal list of approved visuals, noting their origin, version, and any limitations or dependencies.

Managing Organizational Custom Visuals

For larger organizations, managing custom visuals centrally can simplify governance:

• Publish visuals to your company’s Power BI tenant.
• Curate a list of approved visuals via the Power BI admin portal.
• Track usage and enforce update policies.
• Maintain governance, security, and version control—especially in large teams.

This approach is crucial for compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific standards. The admin portal also provides audit logs and usage analytics for monitoring adoption and spotting issues early.

Custom Visual Certification: Benefits and Requirements

Microsoft’s certification process ensures custom visuals meet strict security, performance, and compliance standards. In AppSource, certified visuals are clearly marked and come with several perks:

• Enhanced trust for IT teams and compliance officers.
• Access to special Power BI features (e.g., exporting to PowerPoint/PDF, embedding in secure environments).
• Better organizational compliance.
• Faster updates and better vendor support.

Certification process:

• Submit the visual to Microsoft with required documentation.
• Microsoft tests for security, performance, and guideline adherence.
• Certification ensures visuals don’t access unauthorized data, run unsafe code, or slow down reports.

For organizations—especially those sharing data externally or in regulated environments—using certified visuals is the safest bet.

Development Environment Setup and Best Practices

To develop custom visuals for Power BI, you’ll need:

• Node.js
• TypeScript
• Power BI Visuals API

Steps:

1. Install the necessary software.
2. Configure the API.
3. Structure your visual project.

Development workflow:

• Initialize with Power BI visuals tools.
• Write rendering logic in TypeScript or JavaScript.
• Use libraries like D3.js for advanced graphics.
• Test locally in Power BI Desktop with sample data.
• Package and share the .pbiviz file.
• Use version control systems like Git for collaboration.

Best practices:

• Follow Microsoft’s guidelines for accessibility, security, and performance.
• Test visuals with different datasets and environments.
• Document your code and plan for future updates.
• Use automated testing and version control.
• Engage with the Power BI developer community for support.

Don’t forget to document limitations, dependencies, or permissions needed for your visual. Monitor feedback channels like GitHub or Power BI forums, and keep visuals updated for compatibility.

Troubleshooting Common Custom Visual Issues

Custom visuals can encounter issues such as:

• Import errors
• Performance slowdowns
• Visuals not rendering due to version mismatches, missing dependencies, or invalid data structures
• Reports becoming sluggish with complex visuals or large datasets
• Loss of functionality after Power BI updates (e.g., changes to the rendering engine or security policies)
• Failures with visuals relying on external data sources or APIs due to network or authentication issues

Troubleshooting steps:

• Check that the visual works with your Power BI version and that all permissions are set.
• Look for updates to the visual and check developer documentation for known issues.
• Double-check security and compliance status for organizational or uncertified visuals.
• Simplify data inputs, optimize measures, or reduce SVG/script complexity to resolve performance issues.

If issues persist:

• Reach out to the visual’s developer.
• Consult Power BI community forums.
• Keep visuals up to date and follow best practices to avoid recurring problems.

In larger organizations, IT teams might use Power BI’s diagnostic tools or Azure Monitor to track errors and performance issues. Keeping detailed records of visual versions, update dates, and known bugs can help spot patterns and resolve problems quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are custom visuals in Power BI?

Custom visuals are user-created or third-party visualizations that extend Power BI’s standard chart and graph options, allowing for more tailored data presentations.

How do I import a custom visual from AppSource?

Open Power BI, go to the Visualizations pane, select “Import from marketplace,” search for your visual, and click “Add.”

Are certified visuals safer to use?

Yes, certified visuals have passed Microsoft’s security, performance, and compliance checks, making them safer for organizational use.

Can I use Python or R scripts for custom visuals?

Absolutely. Power BI supports custom visuals built with Python or R, letting you leverage advanced libraries for specialized charts.

What should I do if a custom visual stops working after a Power BI update?

Check for updates to the visual, review documentation for known issues, and ensure compatibility with your Power BI version. If needed, contact the developer or seek help in Power BI forums.