To augment data visualization in Power BI, tooltips play a vital role. They offer added context and insights when users hover over data points. Yet, the default tooltip display may not always align with specific needs or preferences.

Power BI provides extensive customization features, empowering users to personalize tooltips to align with their requirements. This includes the ability to enhance tooltips by incorporating extra fields, adjusting formatting, and integrating interactive elements.

Dive into this post to explore the realm of tooltip management within Power BI.

Default Tooltip Customization

The default tooltips in Power BI provide users with essential information about the data points they hover over in a visual.

These tooltips typically include:

• Data Values: The primary data value associated with the data point, such as sales amount, quantity, or percentage.
• Category Names: For categorical data, the tooltip often displays the name of the category or group represented by the data point.
• Series Names: In case of multiple series or groups within a visual, the tooltip might indicate the name of the series or group to which the data point belongs.
• Formatting: Default tooltips typically adhere to standard formatting conventions, such as number formatting for numeric values and date formatting for date/time values.
• Additional Information: Depending on the configuration of the visual and the data fields used, the tooltip may also display additional contextual information, such as the date, time, or any other relevant metadata.

Let’s say you want to add a new field to a tooltip, go to the Tooltips well and add a new field.

When you place your mouse on the visual, the tooltip will display the newly added field.

While these default tooltips provide basic information, you can customize and enhance tooltips to include more detailed insights, additional data fields, and interactive elements, to better meet their reporting needs.

Removing Tooltips

Tooltips in Power BI are typically enabled on visuals by default, but they can be disabled. There are situations where tooltips may not be necessary; for example, if you are already using data labels, the tooltips could become redundant.

In situations such as these, you can easily turn off tooltips by following these steps.

Select the visual, then go to Properties in the Format pane and switch off the Tooltips control to deactivate tooltips for that visual.

Creating Tooltip Visuals

If the default tooltip falls short of your needs, you can use an entire page to create what you want to appear in the tooltip. This approach offers the freedom to include any desired items within the tooltip display.

To create an effective tooltip page, start fresh and customize the page with the right size to optimize its display when hovering over visuals. Incorrect sizing can lead to inefficient tooltips with some visuals missing or hidden.

Another thing you want to do is to configure the page as a tooltip and define the fields for which the tooltip will appear when hovering on visuals that use those fields. Both settings are necessary for a tooltip page to work appropriately.

To adjust the tooltip page size, open a new page and navigate to the Format pane. From there, choose Tooltip as the Type from the Canvas settings dropdown menu.

To configure the page as a tooltip page, navigate to the Page Information dropdown and choose Tooltip as the Page Type. The Show Tooltip On setting determines the fields that will display a tooltip when hovered over in a visual that utilizes them. The Show Tooltip When setting will auto-populate once fields are selected in the Show Tooltip On section.

Other settings you can apply are the Canvas background and the Wallpaper setting. These settings will directly affect the display of your tooltip. The Filter pane and Filter cards settings are not needed.

Once you’ve configured the tooltip page dimension, you can start adding the visuals you wish to display in your tooltip.

Notice that the tooltip page appears quite small compared to the canvas space. This limitation means you can only include a few visuals, and they must be resized accordingly. As a general guideline, aim for two to four visuals when setting up a tooltip page.

After creating the tooltip page, return to your initial report page. Select the visual where you want to apply the new tooltip. In the Format pane, navigate to Properties and click on the Tooltips dropdown.

Under the Options menu, you will find two options – Type and Page. Select Report page as the Type. This allows you to use a previously created tooltip report page. In the Page option, select the page containing your desired tooltip from the list of available tooltip pages.

Once finished, hovering your mouse over the visual will reveal the visual’s set up in the tooltip report page, given that the visual utilizes the specified fields in the tooltip. You can hide the tooltip page from view to prevent unintentional alterations.

Conclusions

Tooltips have the potential to turn your Power BI visualizations into interactive storytelling tools. Their versatility in customization enhances the interactive experience.

By carefully curating the content and style of your tooltips, you can empower users to uncover hidden patterns, make more informed decisions, and ultimately extract greater value from the data you present.