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Iterative Business Intelligence Development

Christopher Wagner • January 9, 2020

Business Intelligence and Agile Development go hand in hand

Earlier this week, we published the BEST way to get started in Power BI starter kit that includes:

  1. Kratos BI Data - A sample dataset used for:
    • Demo of tabular model best practices
    • Testing out DAX statements
    • New features in Power BI
  1. Kratos BI Sample Report - A sample Power BI report used for:
    • Report Best Practices
    • Layout examples
    • Examples of bookmarks
    • Examples of navigation
  1. Kratos BI Power BI Theme - A sample custom Power BI report them used for:
    • Best practice for custom Power BI theme
    • Match corporate colors
    • Consistent look and feel
    • Starter file for those new to JSON file formats
  1. Kratos BI Backgrounds - A PowerPoint file filled with sample layouts used for:
    1. Report layout best practices
    2. Report performance
    3. User understanding


The Power BI starter kit is an excellent resource for testing out new features and build out as part of writing this blog. Look for updates to this starter kit to correspond to the updates on this blog.

First Report Feedback and Updates

The feedback for the Power BI starter kit was overwhelmingly positive. Thank you.

There was some feedback on how the Kratos BI report could be improved to look better.

Alex Ooi ACMA wrote to me and offered two suggestions that were apparent improvements to the report. Thank you Alex!

Pop Up Card

Alex's first piece of feedback was on the State card that would pop-up over the map visual on the Sales page of the report.

The blue background with the black text was tough to read. Alex shared a link to a great blog he wrote on the value of color contrasts and an excellent resource for selecting colors that work well together.

Alex played with the colors a bit and eventually recommended changing the background to white. It was the easiest to read and kept the focus on the pop-up data.

Changing the pop-up card to a white background was a significant improvement (see the screenshot below).

Bubbles tickle my nose

Alex's next recommendation was to do something about the bubble charts on the detailed Reseller and Customer Sales pages. On the bubble charts, the size of the purchase and a large number of items visualized made it hard to read, select a single value, or understand if there were any patterns or outliers.

Removing the size measure increased the usability of the bubble chart. Once the change was made, individual resellers became apparent, and it was clear to see that there were growth patterns within the Value Added Resellers and the Warehouse reseller, clients.

These changes (and a few less noteworthy) have been made to the Kratos BI Sample Report and are now available for you to download.

If you have any other comments or thoughts, please let me know! I will update these materials and share with others the best practices that come from the community.

CHRIS WAGNER, MBA MVP

Analytics Architect, Mentor, Leader, and Visionary

Chris has been working in the Data and Analytics space for nearly 20 years. Chris has dedicated his professional career to making data and information accessible to the masses. A significant component in making data available is continually learning new things and teaching others from these experiences. To help people keep up with this ever-changing landscape, Chris frequently posts on LinkedIn and to this blog.

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