This week I’m sharing a best practice my team and I started to implement years back when our dashboard portfolio grew past 100+ users. In hindsight, it would have been helpful at the 50 user mark, but c'est la vie. Allow me to introduce the Guided Tour Help Button in Power BI.

When it comes to adding context to a dashboards, many developers drop a few tooltips and call it a day. It's quick it's easy, and honestly for a small team it's more than fine. But once your report starts reaching dozens or hundreds of people, that tooltip isn't doing enough heavy lifting, and it’s only a matter of time before your inbox starts filling with questions that could have been answered without your input.

The reality is that people change jobs, move departments, or only open a report once a month. By the time they're back in it, they've forgotten how it works. And that's not a user problem, that's just a design gap you can close with a little added effort.

This week’s issue is all about the why. If you’re interested in the how I’ll link my tutorial on that below in the TLDR section.

Announcement 📣

A couple weeks ago I started enabling testimonials for PlotStack!

Sooo, if you would be so kind as to leave a testimonial if you have been enjoying these issues, that would greatly help this small publication grow and let me know what you like most. Thanks in advance! 😄

Leave a testimonial →

The Help Button Nobody Builds, But Everyone Needs

First, what’s a guided tour? You've seen these before. Sign up for a new app and a little overlay appears highlighting key buttons with brief explanations. Same thing happens after a software update when the interface shifts and the product walks you through what changed. It's a non-intrusive contextual intro that gets you oriented without reading a manual or asking for help. The same concept translates directly into Power BI reports with the help of buttons and bookmarks.

So why do this for my Power BI dashboard? Well, familiarity doesn't scale that great. For a small group of regular users, repetition builds intuition. They'll learn the report through daily or weekly use and rarely need hand-holding. But that logic breaks down fast when you're publishing to a broader audience. Let’s take an operations team that’s gone from 30 to 50 for example. That’s a significant jump from the norm. That’s more opportunity for confusion, questions, and abandonment.

Confusion is the silent report killer. When users can't figure out a report, they don't always ask for help. Most often, they just stop using it. You'll never see that explained in your usage metrics, you'll just notice visits plateau or that stakeholders are still pulling data manually despite having a perfectly good report available. This conundrum happens all too often in both lean and large teams. A Help button lowers that barrier. It gives users a moment to orient themselves without requiring them to reach out to you or their manager. That's a small thing that compounds into real adoption.

Lastly, it shifts the burden off you. Every "how does this dashboard work?" message you get is a Help button that doesn't exist yet. The more self-service context you bake into a report, the less time you spend on support and re-explanation. Time that's better spent building the next thing. Think of it less as documentation and more as an investment in your future bandwidth.

This week’s topic was: helpful / not helpful

Which company developed the Python programming language?

A. Microsoft
B. Google
C. IBM
D. None of the above

Answer at the bottom of this issue

How to Create a Guided Tour Help Button in Power BI by Dmitri Spiropoulos
Here is my tutorial-esque article on Medium where I go into all the details on building out a guided tour with the help of buttons and bookmarks, both features that are native to Power BI. My friend link allows you to skip the paywall. Read more →

Enhance the Power BI user experience with visual guides within a report by Zsofia Dala
A walkthrough covering two approaches to in-report guidance. Hover tooltips for quick contextual info and full-page overlays triggered by a button click. A solid reference if you want to explore beyond the Help button method. Read more →

Dynamic Power BI Dashboards with Bookmarks and Buttons by Ben Richardson
A guide to using bookmarks and buttons to build interactive, navigable reports, complete with a free PBIX file to follow along. Great for getting hands-on practice with the exact features behind the Help button technique. Read more →

FREE Power BI Theme Generator #data-visualization #productivity
A newer generator on the market with a live preview, light/dark mode support, accessibility-friendly color palettes, and the ability to generate palettes from an uploaded image. A solid pick for those who want their reports to look as good as they function.

Bio.Sites #branding #productivity
Bio Sites by Squarespace is a simple way to keep all your important links in one place. It gives you a single, customizable page to showcase your latest projects, products, and socials. So instead of updating links everywhere, you maintain one central source of truth. I’ll plug mine here for reference.

▶️ 5 WAYS to use BOOKMARKS in Power BI by Hot To Power BI (10 mins)
Bookmarks are the backbone of the Help button feature, and this video breaks down five practical ways to use them in your reports. A solid watch before diving into building your own guided tour.

Which company developed the Python programming language?

A. Microsoft
B. Google
C. IBM
D. None of the above ✅

Python was actually created by Guido van Rossum, a Dutch programmer, and first released in 1991. Van Rossum developed it as a side project, wanting a language that was simple, readable, and fun to use. The name itself was inspired by Monty Python's Flying Circus, not the snake.

😮‍💨 Newsletter publishing is hard work and it’s just me running the show here. If you ever feel like extending a thanks, leaving feedback or a testimonial helps me out a TON!

🛍️ If you’re feeling extra generous, I also keep an Amazon Wishlist of books and tools I’m interested in.