While a suggested set of report content is a good starting point, analysts often have a specific need to meet. You can have Copilot create a report from the criteria you provide using prompts as well. These can be as simple as “create a page that shows customer analysis” or more specific, such as “create a page to show the impact of each sales territory on profit and quantity sold.”
Figure 11.32 – The report narrative generated by Copilot
After the narrative is generated, remember to always review the narrative for accuracy and adjust the prompt, if necessary, to produce more accurate results. In addition to summaries, you can ask it to highlight key information, customize the order in which the data is described to help convey importance, specify specific data points to include in the summary, and even generate impact analysis showing how different factors affect metrics on the report.
Report, page, and visual narratives are a great way to guide users through a report, especially if there isn’t a subject matter expert there to explain all the data.
Finally, let’s look at using Copilot to improve the Q&A visual.
Generating synonyms with Copilot
The Q&A visual has been dazzling users for years at this point. It is impressive to build a model, walk into the room, and tell users that they can use natural language to query their data without needing to build any visuals. This may not be as impressive as the Copilot functionality that we have today, but it is still a very useful tool in your Power BI visualization toolbelt.
One piece of important information for the success of Q&A is something called a synonym. These are end-user-specific ways to reference data. For example, a table in the data model may be called Dim Person, but you know that some report consumers always refer to these as “users.” Therefore, you would create a synonym that tells Q&A that when someone asks about users, they are really talking about persons. This can also be done on a column level. A synonym for “postal code” could be “zip code,” while a synonym for an “item” could be “product” or “finished good.”
Q&A itself may not use Copilot, but Power BI Desktop can leverage Copilot to generate synonyms. This can be done when creating a new Q&A visual by clicking on Add synonyms from the ribbon with the label Improve Q&A with synonyms from Copilot. They can also be generated from the Q&A settings menu by adding Copilot as a source from the Suggestion settings list.
The more synonyms that can be used to describe your data, the more likely you are to produce quality Q&A results. It is important to double-check the synonyms generated by Copilot to ensure they line up with your specific business terminology.
With these Copilot experiences for Power BI, you will be able to generate report ideas, report pages and visuals, summaries, and narratives, and improve Q&A.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by mastering the creation of Fabric workspaces in Power BI, you've laid a solid foundation for efficient data management and reporting. With Fabric's capabilities at your fingertips, you're equipped to streamline workflows, generate insightful reports, and enhance collaboration within your organization. Keep exploring the diverse functionalities of Fabric to continuously refine your Power BI experience and stay ahead in the realm of data analytics.
Author bio
Arshad Ali is a principal product manager at Microsoft, working on the Microsoft Fabric product team in Redmond, WA. He focuses on Spark Runtime, which empowers both data engineering and data science experiences. In his previous role, he helped strategic customers and partners adopt Azure Synapse and Microsoft Fabric. Arshad has more than 20 years of industry experience and has been with Microsoft for over 16 years. He is the co-author of the book Big Data Analytics with Azure HDInsight and the author of over 200 technical articles and blogs on data and analytics. Arshad holds an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and an MCA from India.
Bradley Schacht is a principal program manager on the Microsoft Fabric product team based in Saint Augustine, Florida. Bradley is a former consultant and trainer and has co-authored five books on SQL Server and Power BI. As a member of the Microsoft Fabric product team, Bradley works directly with customers to solve some of their most complex data problems and helps shape the future of Microsoft Fabric. Bradley gives back to the community by speaking at events, such as the PASS Summit, SQL Saturday, Code Camp, and user groups across the country, including locally at the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG). He is a contributor on SQLServerCentral and blogs on his personal site, BradleySchacht.