Power BI Dashboard Examples: 20 Layouts by Department

Before the examples, the shared structure. A header band (about 64 px) holds the title, the reporting period and two or three slicers. Below it sits a KPI row (about 112 px) of 3-5 cards, each with a value, a comparison and ideally a small trend. The remaining roughly 480 px is the analysis area: a wide main chart on the left (about 60% of the width) and one or two stacked breakdowns on the right.

This follows the reading order Microsoft recommends (most important information top-left, detail toward the bottom-right) and keeps each page to 6-10 visuals. The examples below say where they differ from it.

1. Executive P&L overview. Question: are we hitting plan this quarter? KPIs: revenue, gross margin %, operating expense, EBITDA, each vs plan. Main chart: a line and clustered column combo of actual vs plan by month. Right column: a waterfall from plan to actual profit by driver. Bottom-right: a small matrix of business units with variance and conditional formatting using the theme's good and bad colours.
2. Cash flow and working capital. KPIs: cash balance, operating cash flow, DSO, DPO. Main chart: a 13-week cash forecast area chart with a reference line at the minimum cash threshold. Right: an aged receivables stacked bar (0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+ days). Keep the forecast and actuals visually distinct with a dashed line style for forecast.
3. Budget vs actual by cost centre. This one inverts the skeleton: a large matrix is the main element, because finance users read rows. KPIs above it show total budget, actual, variance and percentage consumed. Add a bar chart of the ten largest overspends on the right so the exceptions are visible without scrolling the matrix.
4. Accounts payable. KPIs: open payables, overdue amount, average days to pay, early-payment discounts captured. Main chart: payments due by week (column). Right: top suppliers by overdue amount (bar). A table of invoices goes on a drillthrough page, not here.

1. Sales performance. KPIs: bookings, win rate, average deal size, pipeline coverage. Main chart: bookings by month vs target. Right: bookings by region (bar, sorted by value), and below it a rep leaderboard table with a data bar column. Region and segment slicers in the header.
2. Pipeline health. Main chart: a funnel or stacked bar by stage, showing value and count. Right: a scatter of deal age vs value, coloured by stage, to expose stalled large deals. KPIs: open pipeline, weighted pipeline, deals slipping this month, average days in stage.
3. Account 360. A detail page reached by drillthrough from an account name. Header shows the account and owner. KPIs: lifetime revenue, open opportunities, support tickets, renewal date. Main chart: revenue by quarter. Right: products owned (table with icons) and recent activity. Tip: design one background and reuse it for every drillthrough page so they feel like one product.

1. Campaign performance. KPIs: spend, leads, cost per lead, marketing-sourced pipeline. Main chart: spend vs leads by week (combo with a second axis, since spend and lead counts are on different scales). Right: channel table with spend, leads, CPL and conversion, sorted by CPL.
2. Web and content analytics. KPIs: sessions, conversion rate, sign-ups, bounce rate. Main chart: sessions by day with a 7-day moving average line. Right: top pages (bar) and traffic source split (100% stacked bar rather than a pie, so the shares are comparable across months).

1. Workforce overview. KPIs: headcount, hires, exits, attrition rate (rolling 12 months). Main chart: headcount trend by month with hires and exits as columns. Right: headcount by department (bar) and a tenure distribution (column histogram). Mind privacy: aggregate small groups so individuals can't be identified, and apply row-level security by department.
2. Recruiting funnel. KPIs: open requisitions, time to fill, offer acceptance rate, cost per hire. Main chart: candidates by stage (funnel). Right: time to fill by department (bar) with a target reference line. Requisition-level detail lives on a drillthrough page.

1. Operations control tower. Meant for a wall screen, so it uses larger cards and fewer visuals. KPIs: orders today, on-time %, backlog, exceptions. Main chart: orders by hour today vs the same weekday last week. Right: exceptions by type (bar). Design it at 1920 × 1080 if it will run on a TV, so text stays legible from a distance.
2. Inventory health. KPIs: inventory value, days of supply, stock-outs, excess stock value. Main chart: days of supply by product category with a target band. Right: a scatter of demand vs stock to find overstock and stock-out risk.
3. Supplier scorecard. A matrix of suppliers by month with on-time delivery, quality and cost variance, conditionally formatted. KPIs above it summarise the total. A map is tempting here; a bar chart by country is usually clearer.
4. Manufacturing OEE. KPIs: OEE, availability, performance, quality. Main chart: OEE by line by shift (column). Right: top downtime reasons as a Pareto chart, meaning sorted bars plus a cumulative percentage line.

1. IT service desk. KPIs: open tickets, SLA compliance, mean time to resolve, backlog over 7 days. Main chart: tickets opened vs closed by day (lines). Right: open tickets by priority and team (stacked bar). Use the theme's status colours for SLA breach on every visual.
2. Customer support and CSAT. KPIs: CSAT, first contact resolution, average handle time, contacts per order. Main chart: CSAT trend with a target line. Right: contact reasons (bar) and a short table of the lowest-rated categories.
3. Project portfolio. KPIs: active projects, on track, at risk, budget consumed. The main element is a Gantt-style timeline by project with status colour. Power BI's native Gantt (added October 2026, in preview as of November 2026) covers the basics; for dependency arrows, baselines or status swimlanes a custom visual earns its place, and VizForge can generate one. Right: budget vs actual by project (bar).

1. Healthcare operations. KPIs: bed occupancy, average length of stay, ED wait time, readmission rate. Main chart: occupancy by ward by day (matrix heatmap with conditional formatting). Right: ED arrivals by hour (column). Keep it aggregate; patient-level data belongs in secured detail pages.
2. Retail store performance. KPIs: sales, transactions, average basket, like-for-like growth. Main chart: sales by week vs last year. Right: store ranking (bar) and category mix (stacked bar). A store slicer in the header turns the same page into a store-manager view.

First, decide the page size. 1280 × 720 suits laptops and Teams screen shares; 1920 × 1080 suits wall displays.

Second, design the structure once: header band, card panels and chart panels, in your brand colours. Export it as the page background at the canvas size (or 2× for sharpness).

Third, set the theme so cards, labels and series colours match the design, with transparent visual backgrounds.

Fourth, place visuals on the panels using exact X, Y, width and height from the design (Format visual > General > Properties).

The VizForge Design Studio collapses those steps: pick a department template, change colours and labels, and export a PBIP project. It opens in Power BI Desktop with the background, theme and empty visual containers already in place; you then bind your fields.