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Add comments to a dashboard or report

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Add a personal comment or start a conversation about a dashboard or report with your colleagues. The comment feature is just one of the ways a business user can collaborate with others.

How to use the Comments feature

Comments can be added to an entire dashboard, to individual visuals on a dashboard, to a report page, to a paginated report, and to individual visuals on a report page. Add a general comment or add a comment targeted at specific colleagues. Comments can be up to 2000 characters, including @mentions of other users and spaces.

When you add a comment to a report, Power BI captures the current filter and slicer values and creates a bookmark. This means that when you select or respond to a comment, the report page or report visual may change to show you the filter and slicer selections that were active when the comment was first added.

Why is this important? Say a colleague applied a filter that revealed an interesting insight that they want to share with the team. Without that filter selected, the comment might not make sense.

If you are using a paginated report, you may only leave a general comment about your report. Support for leaving comments on individual paginated report visuals is not available.

Add a general comment to a dashboard or report

The process for adding comments to a dashboard or report is similar. In this example, we're using a dashboard.

1. Open a Power BI dashboard or report and select the Comment icon. This opens the Comments dialog.

   

   Here we see that the dashboard creator has already added a general comment. Anyone with access to this dashboard can see this comment.

   

2. To respond, select Reply, type your response, and select Post.

   

   By default, Power BI directs your response to the colleague who started the comment thread, in this case Aaron.

   

3. If you want to add a comment that is not part of an existing thread, enter your comment in the upper text field.

   

   The comments for this dashboard now look like this.

   

Add a comment to a specific dashboard or report visual

In addition to adding comments to an entire dashboard or to an entire report page, you can add comments to individual dashboard tiles and individual report visuals. The processes are similar, and in this example we're using a report.

1. Hover over the visual and select More options (...).

2. From the dropdown, select Add a comment.

   

3. The Comments dialog opens, and the other visuals on the page are greyed out. This visual doesn't have any comments yet.

   

4. Type your comment and select Post.

   

   • On a report page, selecting a comment that was made on a visual, highlights that visual (see below).

   • On a dashboard, the chart icon

     
     lets us know that a comment is tied to a specific visual. Comments that apply to the entire dashboard do not have a special icon. Selecting the chart icon highlights the related visual on the dashboard.

   

5. Select Close to return to the dashboard or report.

Get your colleagues attention by using the @ sign

Whether you're creating a dashboard, report, tile, or visual comment, grab your colleagues' attention by using the "@" symbol. When you type the "@" symbol, Power BI opens a dropdown where you can search for and select individuals from your organization. Any verified name prefaced with the "@" symbol, appears in blue font. The @mentioned individuals will immediately receive an e-mail in their inbox, and if they are using a Power BI Mobile app, they will receive a push notification on their device. They can open the report or dashboard directly from the notification, see the comment, view the data, and reply accordingly.

Here's a conversation I'm having with the visualization designer. They are using the @ symbol to ensure I see the comment. I receive a notification and select the link to open this dashboard and the relevant conversation.

Considerations and troubleshooting

• Comments are limited to 2000 characters, including @mentions of other users and spaces.
• The maximum number of conversations on a dashboard or report is 100. The maximum number of comments per conversation is 1000. To add a new conversation or comment, delete prior conversations or comments.
• Bookmarks are not captured when you reply to a conversation. Only the first comment in a conversation creates a bookmark.
• If you are using a paginated report, you may only leave a general comment about your report. Support for leaving comments on individual paginated report visuals is not available.

Next steps

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