Do you need inspiration for your upcoming Power BI sales dashboard? Well, I got you covered. In this page, let me present 33 alternatives for Sales Analytics Dashboards with Power BI.
About a month ago, I asked you to visualize Sales data of Awesome Chocolates with Power BI. I got over 110 entries. After carefully reviewing all of them, I’ve narrowed down the list to just 33 options, which are presented in this page. Check them out and get inspired.
About the Data & Business Needs
All the dashboards on this page use the chocolate sales data for a fictional company, aptly named awesome chocolates.
The purpose of the dashboard is to inform CEO of Awesome Chocolates the performance of our business in the last 13 months. The dataset contains daily shipment data from 2023 February to 2024 February. Here are a few things our CEO is interested in.
- How sales, units, shipments, profit, profit%, low-box shipments (shipments with box count under 50) trends are looking
- A detailed performance understanding at product or salesperson level
- Interesting patterns in product / geography data
- Ability to drill down to details if needed.
Participants of this dashboard contest are encouraged to use various powerful interactive features of Power BI like tooltips, bookmarks, DAX, conditional formatting, pictures and anything else they might fancy.
33 Sales Analysis Dashboards
Sales Dashboard by Aarthi D
My comments:
- Interesting take, lots of nuggets like “chocolate facts”, bookmarks, key influencer analysis, field params, conditional formats.
- Feels busy and a bit confusing. The lines for products / people / countries are all misleading.
Sales Dashboard by Adediran A
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Love the monthly target table and thermo-meter chart.
- DAX for calculating shortfall, conditional formatting.
- Amazing labels on charts. Simple colors.
Sales Dashboard by Ajay PS
My comments:
- Love the “profitable transaction %” measure.
- Reference labels, slicer panel.
- Colors are also nice and well contrasted.
- A bit more thought on the design and UX could have truly elevated this.
Sales Dashboard by Ajay S
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Smart design with lots of surprising elements, tooltips and interesting DAX.
- Chart trickery with one chart to show columns and lines.
- Simple colors and presentation.
- Drillthrough page / tooltips and bookmarks.
Sales Dashboard by Ankan B
My comments:
- Clean and elegant design with nice colors
- Love the cards and easy slicers.
- Could have added a bit of padding to the table to make it easy on eyes
Sales Dashboard by Arbaz A
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Awesome design, beautiful colors and layout.
- Tooltips, interesting chart work, lots of fun DAX.
Judge’s comments:
- (+) I believe it would be a strong entry, if the color choice would be chosen differently
- (+) Nice design of left-slicer-pane
- (+) Nice designs of KPI cards (like the color implementation in LM section)
- (+) There is a lot of tricks applied, inspired by the community (table pagination, multi-tier bar charts and some others, TOPn)
- (+) Custom Tool-tips
- (-) Too cluttered
- (-) All the information focuses on a single metric at one time (what could be beneficial is to display multiple metrics side by side, etc.)
Sales Dashboard by Egidiu D
My comments:
- Pareto Analysis, field params
- Clean, mono-chromatic design.
Sales Dashboard by Faten A
My comments:
- Clean and fun 3 page design with elegant execution.
- Cards on page 1 look great.
- Some insights are obvious and not needed (number of products by cat for ex.)
Sales Dashboard by Filip K
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Poses questions and answers. Clever use of DAX, field parameters and calc. groups.
- Interesting matrix view with good use of color.
- Engaging design.
Judge’s comments:
(+) Wow, nice trick with using CG and implementation of double-column header in the right-bottom matrix
(+) Great initiative to brind more “external” data like Cocoa avg. Prices
(+) Good initiative to bring some additional insights (it’s an advantage and downside at the same time)
(-) Too monotone layout/design (it’s generally clean, but background is too distracting and some of information are presented using ‘too light’ colors
(-) Some insights are not intuitive at the first glance
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Sales Dashboard by Itiksha M
My comments:
- Fun design with lots of DAX goodness, bookmarks (they seem a bit clunky to work with)
- Daily / monthly / quarterly / yearly summaries.
- Love the product images too.
- A bit more testing and UX improvement.
Sales Dashboard by Jahbuikem A
My comments:
- Lots of technique – bookmarks, built-in help, tooltips, DAX.
- Could do with better and smoother design
Sales Dashboard by Jiakun Z
My comments:
- Good technique – bookmarks, topn, closer look graph, field params and top / bottom analysis
- Design feels a bit busy and rushed. A little more thought on presentation could truly elevate this.
Sales Dashboard by João S
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Beautiful, understated design
- Clever analysis options with interactive scatter plot.
- Creative use of field params and disconnected tables.
Judge’s comments:
(+) Nice implementation of quadrant chart
(+) Quite clean design, especially in comparison to other entries
(-) Nice attempt with highlighted items within a table, but now it’s a bit too distracting
Sales Dashboard by Karuna N
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Interesting and simple design.
- Few errors but good effort.
Sales Dashboard by Luis R
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Impressive and clever layout with global and detail views.
- Fun use of filters, bookmarks, tooltips and field params.
- Built in help.
- Love the shipment size histogram too.
Sales Dashboard by Maciej
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Beautiful colors, overview and detail layout, Reference labels, top 5 vs rest through conditional formatting, bookmarks.
- Lots of field params!
- Love the heatmaps in detail views.
- The narratives with * rating are also great!
Judge’s comments:
- (+) There are some nice implementations (e.g. table with heat map in “Product Analysis section”
Sales Dashboard by Matheus N
My comments:
- Interesting design
- Love the bullet chart, boxes vs. % profit graph and DAX measures.
- Feels fun.
Sales Dashboard by Mohit S
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Love the blue black design.
- Good use of bookmarks, conditional formats, dax, field params.
- Indicator icons.
- Interesting and useful implementation of the scatter plot.
- Forecasting is also helpful.
Sales Dashboard by Patrick E
My comments:
- Chocolatey design!
- Like the % representation of the selected items.
- Tooltips, clear slicers.
Sales Dashboard by Pranav S
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Interesting and fun take on the data. Lots of interactions.
- Could use a bit more design finesse and story-telling to engage.
Sales Dashboard by Rahul SC
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Beautiful design, quite interactive, amazing colors and depth.
- Lots of options.
- Could have added a little narrative or alert icons (in a totally different color / theme) to bring attention to valuable points!
Judge’s comments:
(+) Nice use of SVG-based measures within a table
(+) Appreciate attempts to apply 3D designs for shapes (not relevant in overal report quality though)
(+) Nice use of images
(+) Nice use of bookmarks to switch tables / charts)
(+) I really like the tabular breakdown in an additional view (after activating the bookmark)
(+) Wow, the readmepage is really something… big plus for that one
(-) Too monotone almost each visualization look the same (appreciate the unified style, but in that case it’s an extreme)
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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rated 5* by 100s of customers
Step-by-step Power BI Course
- Learn Power Query, Power Pivot, DAX, Visual design and Storytelling, all in one comprehensive course.
- Dozens of practical examples, real-world case studies and sample files.
- 24+ hours of video material, from beginner to PRO level
- Consistently rated 5STARs by our course members.
Sales Dashboard by Rico B
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Slick design, beautiful colors, alignment and presentation.
- Lots of interactivity, insights and help.
- Love the chocolate images and beautiful card design!
- Usage of calc. groups, dax.
Judge’s comments:
(+) Right bottom card is designed in a very elegant way
(+) Nice use of new native slicers and “flag” icons within the bar charts
(+) Nice additional guidelines (bookmarks / “i” icons)
(+) Clean measures (DAX), nicely categorized in a folders (big plus
(+) Nice implementation in the bottom section (bookmarks + new slicers) which changes the analysis/charts
(-) Too much ‘brown’ color everywhere
(-) There are no many analytical insights (rather basic information in a form of cards and column/bar charts)
Sales Dashboard by Ritik K
My comments:
- Clean design with few items.
- Narratives on each visual.
Sales Dashboard by Sajjad A
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Beautiful colors, clean and slick design.
- Interesting use of period on period comparison.
- Bookmark to switch to an amazing matrix view.
Judge’s comments:
- (+) I like the table in the right section (nice implementation of WoW/Mom etc. change). I would also consider absolute variances
- (+) Generally Clean Report
- (+) I like the idea of trying not incorporate irrelevant analysis and attempt to de-clutter the dashboard. On the other side, I missed a few insights
Sales Dashboard by Silas PO
My comments:
- Dynamic topn, field params, reference labels and simple colors and design.
- Could have swapped the map for something else.
Sales Dashboard by Sundharam MK
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Interesting design, lots of detail, field params, bookmarks
- Clever use of donut + tables.
- Lovely tooltip design.
Sales Dashboard by Tanushree S
My comments:
- Fun design with lots of good elements, nice colors
- Could add some formats (for numbers), make them consistent
Sales Dashboard by Toyin T
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Cool and simple design with lots of features.
- Bookmarks, DAX, time intelligence, built-in help and field params.
- A better use of map chart space and toned down design?
Judge’s comments:
- (+) Nice readme , nice explanations, icons etc.
Sales Dashboard by Vibek P
My comments:
- Love the 8bit look (?)
- Bookmarks and slicers.
- Interesting use of tooltips too.
Sales Dashboard by Vinoth B
My comments:
- Love the P&L structure and report layout.
- Exec style report with simple layout and clean messaging
Sales Dashboard by Wren P
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Fun and highly interactive design with lots of thought and clever bits.
- Tooltips, bookmarks, switchable chart / table views, trends.
- Some of the design elements feel out of place, but great effort.
Sales Dashboard by Zofia W
My comments:
- Interesting colors and design with lots of bookmarks, options and filters.
- Would have swapped the line chart (top left) for a column or bar.
Sales Dashboard by Zulay VDA
Judge's favorite
My comments:
- Pareto analysis
- Multiple views, reference labels, margin categorization.
- Interesting use of DAX
- Built-in help.
What I learned from these Reports?
Thanks to all these beautiful and functional entries, I learned a lot about designing my next Power BI report. Here are my top takeaways:
- Set canvas size to 1080×1920. By default Power BI page size is 720×1280 and almost all the strong entries in this contest used a higher resolution of 1080p. This gives you more space to work and enables more design choices.
- Organize measures into a measure table + folders: When creating complex reports or dashboards, it is a good idea to organize the measures into a separate measure table with folder structure. For example, here the measure structure Sajjad A used:
- Field Parameters are awesome: They are a great way to introduce new kinds of interactivity to your report. I discuss more about Field Params here.
- Spend time carefully designing tables & matrices: Let’s be honest. While we love all the chart options in Power BI, we like to look at numbers when making decisions. As your audience will spend most of the time looking at the table or matrix, give them extra love and design them with utmost care.
- Reference labels on cards is a must! I am loving the “NEW” card visual of Power BI and how it easily enables us to show reference labels. I saw many creative uses of this feature in the contest. (PS: If you want to know how to use them, I showcase the feature in my latest Power BI dashboard video)
What are your key takeaways?
Do share them in the comments below!
Thank you
Thanks everyone for participating. It has been an awesome experience going thru 110+ entries and learning from your work. I did my best to highlight the dashboards and share the feedback for the shortlisted 31 entries.
The top 3 winners will be declared soon.
Meet our judges
Gustaw Dudek
Head of BI at Enterium, Popular Data influencer on LinkedIn with over 27k followers & Microsoft MVP.
More about Gustaw: LinkedIn
Ms. X
Sr. BI Analyst in NZ Govt., 6+ years of creating Power BI reports for ministers & exec. staff.
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36 Responses to “Visualizing Financial Metrics – 30 Alternatives”
Although I am one of the contestants, I must wholeheartedly admit that the Dashboard of Chandeep is the best of all. It's design, colors, message-conveying is the greatest. My regards!
I would like to learn how Chandeep highlighted the graph when he made a selection on the slicer.
Any links to previous posts perhaps where this was covered by Chandoo?
Thank You
Ahmad
Dashboard from Abhay simply rocks. To the point and conveys the intended message even for a novice.
Infographic by Pinank - is looking good
I have also contributed to this contest. I am really inspired by various entries in above post. Based on following parameters i would like to rate these:
1. Explanatory - Whether dashboard will be used to explain certain thing or mention a story. This type of dashboard will be static.
2. Exploratory - Here user would like to interact more with the dashboard to extract the relevant story or meaning which is not apparent. Hence, this type dashboard needs to have more interactivity.
3. Scalability - If new or more data can be added to dashboard and still the functionality will work. If user wants to add more companies, years, etc. will it work.
Based on above criteria I would rate following entries as top ones:
1. Explanatory - by Pinank
2. Exploratory - by Chandeep
3. Scalability - In most of the entries additional work would be required to include more data except for mine. new years or companies can be easily added and analysed in chart by me.
These entries are really inspiring i will definitely use it to revise my dashboard.
Abhay's dashboard is good however, if Chandeep can go with the trend analysis Abhay has done (line graphs), then maybe Chandeep's dashboard can excel.
And now I'm angry that I haven't noticed contest announcement earlier and I've sent what I've sent... Building a dashoboard was supposed to be my goal but lack of time forced me to sent sth simplier and now I can see how big mistake it was (when it comes to fighting a competition like this). Nice work guys! It's realy inspiring! Even less advanced works are intresting because of different task approach. So wance again: thanks 🙂
If I had to choose the best ones (IMHO) I would go for William and Edouard as a second place (for both). Despite some weak sides (like label errors or "work place" next to a final chart) they meet my sense of clear data visualisation and contain intresting interactive elements.
The best entry is definitly Chandeep's. Although there was some failing with automatical comenting feature (#arg! in my Excel'10) it's full of advanced dashboarding tricks which makes it easy to read. Furthermore, as one of the few he finished(?) his project - it opens in a "secured mode", with no place to mess anything, no data trash - just choose, point and read/print.
It all deserves to get the Grand Prize!
and BTW: when can we expect another contest? 🙂
Big round of applause to everyone who participated. I'm amazed at the creativity of our community. 🙂
My vote would be for Chandeep, MF Wong, and Miguel.
I have not contributed, but have read this post with a lot of interest. I would like to congratulate all participants for there work & inventiveness.
My #1 spot goes to Gerald for showing all the data in 1 graph & to have still kept it simple & readable.
I would give a prize for innovation to Pinank for the use of icons.
Great to see so much creativity.
I have not contributed also, but have wait his post for a long time (because I have the same kind of issue in my "daily life").
My top 3 is the following :
- Pinank for the effeiciency and for the style
- Arnaud for the calculation behind the chart
- Miguel for the elegant business oriented dashboard
All the entries look very good. However I feel Pinanks entry seems the best as it is very explanatory with good innovative thoughts.
Hi all,
Some brilliant dashboard and interactive entries - really nice stuff and lots of clever tricks.
However, given that the initial question was "Need to quickly visualize 3 variables ( Company, years, Financials) in a single […] chart", unfortunately I don't think any dashboards - as cool as they are - really answer that question. The interactives also assume that this will be opened in Excel rather than seen in a printed hand-out, which essentially means you'd need multiple charts to show all the variables or be limited to a computer screen. Even Chandoo's initial panel chart approach - which is static, and also very simple and clean - is not really a 'single chart'. Furthermore, most of the interactives don't actually show all variables at once but rather slice the data into more manageable chunks, which is not staying true to the original brief.
So, in light of the above, I'd vote for Gerald in first place, Edwin in second and finally my third chart option in third place (yes, I know, voting for yourself is poor form but unfortunately I think the original question disqualifies most of the entries).
Anyway, a fun competition and thanks for following up on this Chandoo.
I am once again in awe of the submittals to a Chandoo contest. The results are so impressive. I have been trying to build nice dashboards for years and take so many courses, but I don't seem to have the eye for design. The color choices, fonts and chart choices are so important and I'm amazed at how some people really have a great talent for making the best selections.
It's nice to have such quality inspiration!
I saw Chandeep's entry on his website and I must say that I was very impressed by it. Simply loved it. Somewhat makes it difficult to keep an open mind towards the other entries.
My ranking:
1. Chandeep for its completeness as dashboard.
2. MF Wong/Miguel for "simple" but smart graphs.
3. Pinank's entry looks like a page from a glossy magazine.
During scrolling I stopped at Chirayu's entry: easy to the eye.
But honestly congrats too all for having the balls to participate and thank you for sharing your creativity!! Hat's off to you.
Miguel, MF Wong, and Pinank.
Thanks to Chandoo and everyone who contributed for the great ideas.
Hi,
I personally liked the dashboard of:
1. Chandeep - His dashboard is clear, crisp and informative, his color combination and design is awesome, also he has shared few details like operating leverage plus he has added few comments. In totality, its a complete packaged dashboard.
2. Miguel - His dashboard is simple and all the information is visible in one shot.
It's very interesting looking through these - you can definitely tell who's done courses in dashboard design and with whom!
I particularly liked Pawels 'sperm chart' 😉 ... squint your eyes - you'll see what I mean). each of the charts or dashboards are put together well - but I agree with Elchin on this one - Chandeeps dashboard set 'tells a story' of the data. Student of Mr Few??
Without a doubt, Chandeep deserves #1. #2 goes to Abhay, and #3 to Pinhank, for the great presentation style if nothing else.
MF Wong
Do not apologize for any delay! Moving from one town to the next only 10 miles away is tough enough - let alone a family moving from one country to another!
THANK YOU for this excellent post!
As one of the participants, I have been looking forward to this post for long. But totally understood the reason of delay, so never mind! Hope all is well in NZ.
Thank you very much to those who like my chart! 🙂
Also thanks Chandoo for suggesting a name for it "Container Chart", which I have never thought about.
Personally I like the infographic by Pinank. Very outstanding design and use of icons. My two-cent worth: Just the lower part of "Yearly Trend" is actually good enough to answer the question, isn't it? 😉
Cheers,
What an outburst of creativity!
Vote for Chandeep and Pinank!
Agreed!
Awesome dashboards
Infographic by Pinank is awesome
Thank you so much for sharing!! i learn so much from these posts
Highly appreciated
Ahmad
South Africa
Fantastic responses from all the contestants. Some really great ideas. I'm inspired and will adapt some of these to my own dashboard work. Thanks for hosting such a great contest!!
Thank you for sharing this valuable resources !!!
I have only a couple of question that wasn't able to solve regarding data-origin.
Nowadays I have the data coming from a "current" situation from a big database containing all kind purchase-orders information of many different projects. I can calculate the current status of each project investments, but I am not able to track automatically the progress of it month to month or week to week by freezing the calculated metrics on each date. This would let me calculate new graphs and the speed of investments execution.
My question would be, if it is possible to calculate something with an excel formula and automatically freeze this values in a new row or new column. I guess that right now, Basic is the only way, but I guess that there could be a function to copy-a-range, insert-range-as-value-only as a new row or a new column or display everything down or left.
This would preserve the excel formulas defined, and add new data, everytime that it is re-calculated.
Any idea?
Great post , loved all chart representation. Congratulations to all participants and winners.
I need updates to this article.
I didn't even realize this got posted. Came across it today. Thanks
Fantastic post but I was wondering if you could write
a litte more on this subject? I'd be very thankful if you could elaborate a
little bit further. Thank you!
Hi Chandoo,
I comeback after a long time on your Blog. So I saw it lately. Its a brilliant idea.
I like all entries and these are amazing efforts from all participants.
Regards
The report presented by Pinanik is excellent and very innovative. Could be an interesting work for portfolio presentation