What is the difference between Power BI reports and dashboards?

Here's an overview of the differences between Power BI reports and dashboards:

1. Power BI Reports:

   • Purpose: Power BI reports are detailed and interactive collections of visualisations, charts, and tables that present specific insights derived from a single or combination of datasets. They allow users to explore and analyse data in depth.
   • Components: A Power BI report is composed of pages each containing one or more visualisations. Visualisations are created using Power BI Desktop and users can use various charts, graphs and tables to represent data.
   • Interactivity: Reports are interactive and user-friendly. Users can click on data points, apply filters and drill down into specific details. Power BI reports support ad-hoc analysis, allowing users to dynamically explore the data.
   • Navigation: Users can navigate through different pages within a report to view various aspects of the data. The report author defines the structure and layout of the report, guiding users through a predefined analysis path.

2. Power BI Dashboards:

   • Purpose: Power BI dashboards are a collection of visualisations and reports that provide a high-level overview of key metrics and insights. They offer a consolidated view of data to facilitate quick decision-making and can be comprised from multiple data-sources.
   • Components: Dashboards consist of individual tiles which can be visualisations, images or text boxes. These tiles are often pinned from specific reports, datasets or other sources.
   • Interactivity: While dashboards are interactive, their primary purpose is to provide a snapshot of important information. Users can interact with dashboard tiles, such as applying filters but the level of interaction is generally more limited compared to reports.
   • Customisation: Users can customise the layout of a dashboard by arranging and resizing tiles. Dashboards provide a visual summary and can include visuals from multiple reports and datasets, creating a unified view.
   • Real-Time Updates: Dashboards can be set up to display real-time data, updating at predefined intervals to reflect the latest information.

3. Relationship between Reports and Dashboards:

   • Power BI reports and dashboards are interconnected. Users can pin specific visualisations or entire report pages to a specific dashboard. This allows them to combine insights from different reports into a single, consolidated view on the dashboard.
   • Clicking on a dashboard tile can take users to the underlying report for more detailed analysis. This seamless integration facilitates a transition from high-level insights on the dashboard to deeper exploration in the reports.

In summary, Power BI reports are detailed, interactive analysis of specific datasets, while dashboards provide a summarised, visual overview of key metrics and insights from multiple reports. Together, they offer a comprehensive solution for data exploration, analysis, and presentation.