Skip to main content

Power BI

Under Review

Report page tooltip on all objects

Vote (587) Share
Jack Wells's profile image

Jack Wells on 09 Mar 2018 00:32:20

New report page tooltip preview feature in the March update is great.

Would be nice if we had the option of adding this tooltip to visuals that previously didn't have a tooltip.

For example, I have a card visual. I'd like users to get one of these mini report pages pop-up when they hover over it but as this visual doesn't have a tooltip it can't be used.

Would be great if we can do this on other things like shapes and text boxes as well.

Administrator on 08 Mar 2019 01:25:51

Since the initial release, we added support for table, matrix, and cards. https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-july-2018-feature-summary/#tableTooltips https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-september-2018-feature-summary/#tooltips I'll leave this idea open for now since there are some requests for shapes, textboxes, and buttons, but it would be helpful if people can comment on their use cases for report page tooltips on these non-visual report elements.

Comments (27)
Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

bcfc8035 06d7-ea11-a813-000d3a579c34 on 05 Aug 2020 10:54:57

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

We use report page tooltips on the Table visual a lot, but its a real pain that you can't assign the tooltip to a particular column, only the whole row. Please allow report page tooltips for each column.

Agree with the other comments about extending report page tooltips to all visuals.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

10df9da6 c24b-492d-8d1b-7d7ac930e4b4 on 06 Jul 2020 00:13:06

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

'+1, this would be awesome!
Currently my client want to show a picture tooltip (picture = whole tooltip page) but we would love the possibility to be able to click on the item (button) to do some action.
Now I am using card with blank characters to show the tooltip.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

a3309361 99be-ea11-a812-000d3a8ddfb2 on 06 Jul 2020 00:12:58

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

I would appreciate if buttons had the same ability to have a Report page tooltip functionality. When customers hover over a card or any type of visual to point things out for the audience, for instance, they don't necessarily want it to be covered by the page tooltip. However, if there was an information button in the corner of the visual connected to the tooltip page, this provides a more controlled environment where if they want to see the tooltip, they just hover over the button.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

07ab4c00 53a0-49e9-8e5d-6417ed3a4cfe on 06 Jul 2020 00:09:27

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

Definitely really need tooltips in text boxes at the minimum - the way that I get around this today is to actually create a .png image of the textbox / text label I need to tooltip and embed that into my Power BI reports today which feels clunky at best

As others have commented below, my primary use case is metric definition - if I'm making a dashboard that has several KPIs on it, from a UX perspective, a lot of users would prefer to stay on a single page than having to go to another page that has all of the metric definitions on it - to be able to hover over a metric label and better understand information about it (e.g. Productivity is a calculation of a over b) that can't otherwise be very easily understood is absolutely critical

Mind you the image workaround is working today, but would be much easier if there were built in tool tips!

The other main reason for using textboxes vs. cards is because textboxes offer significantly more WYSIWIG functionality (e.g. bold/italics/underline) which you can't get in cards without installing separate fonts - because text boxes are so easy to use, typically I'm only using a card for the "big number", but because I need to make my text look a certain way that can't be generated easily via a card's title properties, I typically hide the card's title and create one myself as a text box

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

a3309361 99be-ea11-a812-000d3a8ddfb2 on 06 Jul 2020 00:06:28

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

'+1 for allowing custom report page tooltips on buttons. Main use case is for "info" icons (usually definitions of terms used throughout the report, or caveats about the data).

Currently we're accomplishing this by using the info icon unicode character in a measure, and putting that in a card that supports tooltips. However this seems like a hack, and is also clunky because of the way tooltips are triggered on cards. They only show up when mousing on the character itself, rather than the area of the whole card. It would be easier if card tooltips triggered when mousing on anywhere in the card, not just on the text. That could lessen the need to add it to buttons.

Update: Found this tutorial for another hack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURWlw2_6Ks&pbjreload=10 - though can't get it working. More evidence for this need.

Update 2: If it helps anyone else - we were able to create a measure that was all spaces and apply that to a card to use it as a blank hotspot to trigger tooltips over any object. You get an ellipsis though if the spaces overflow, so either need multiple measures depending on size of card, or to position/color so the ellipsis blend in.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

b627e01d ed9e-4bf6-9848-f063c952db52 on 06 Jul 2020 00:02:54

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

While tooltips are mostly for exposing datapoints, the one thing I use them for a lot is essentialy user documentation. One thing the company is very interested in is that everyone has a common understanding of the metrics and what they are telling them. I am using header tooltips to display definitional information to make sure the user understands what they are looking at.

The use case for Buttons/Text/Links/etc is that the user needs feedback (at times) for which button to press for certain outputs. "Why would I use that button over this one?" By providing a quick hover detail that can give them an explanation they can self discover.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

63347724 f3dc-4d56-bc04-d3a092462f63 on 06 Jul 2020 00:01:58

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

I'd love for the Information button to be enhanced with a Page Tooltip functionality. My current workaround for this is to create a Donut chart (based on one category, with tooltip enabled and 'Inner radius' set to 0, then add a Text box with 'i' on top of it but this is not perfect because the minimum width of the textbox still takes space away where the tooltip won't respond.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

29f2219d c02e-4c89-b47d-5e9330e53f01 on 05 Jul 2020 23:59:39

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

Being able to see tooltips on matrix row headers would be awesome for us - I have a matrix where additional details about the item in the row header would help a lot, separately to the counts in the matrix.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

2c2f90df eb90-4268-bef8-2270c3dfc947 on 05 Jul 2020 23:59:07

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

Page Tooltips on (transparent) buttons would be useful for displaying info on top of R-Visualizations, which are not interactive otherwise.

Jack Wells's profile image Profile Picture

7a8d9e01 8bd2-45b0-b945-932425dc21c9 on 05 Jul 2020 23:57:00

RE: Report page tooltip on all objects

Please add tooltips on shapes.

Usage case is to allow transparent shapes to have tooltips so we could essentially have a tooltip pop-up anywhere on the report.