The request
From Marcus Bell, Head of Sales
“Top left of the sales page, one tile. I want to see this month's sales, whether we're above or below target, and the trend behind it, all at a glance. The target is last year's month plus 10%. Do I want a card or one of those KPI things?”
Your goal
Read the chart of 2025 monthly sales against Marcus's target, then pick the tile that does what he asks.
Sales beat the target in most months, but fall below it in March, September, November and December.
Show the numbers
| Sales | Target (2024 + 10%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2025 | $150,571 | $120,236 |
| Feb 2025 | $99,903 | $85,301 |
| Mar 2025 | $166,787 | $177,625 |
| Apr 2025 | $189,735 | $157,043 |
| May 2025 | $206,469 | $166,951 |
| Jun 2025 | $213,062 | $161,391 |
| Jul 2025 | $191,967 | $150,335 |
| Aug 2025 | $182,987 | $172,051 |
| Sep 2025 | $143,379 | $167,070 |
| Oct 2025 | $174,599 | $164,349 |
| Nov 2025 | $292,364 | $351,139 |
| Dec 2025 | $288,347 | $319,475 |
What Marcus gets, and why
The lesson
Cards and KPI visuals both put one big number on the page. The difference is what sits around the number: nothing, or a goal and a history.
What you are working in
This is a quiz; the chart is drawn on this site from the store’s data. Power BI Desktop runs only on Windows, but the visuals named here are in its Visualizations pane: Card, Multi-row card, KPI and Gauge. Recent versions also offer a newer card visual that can hold several values; it is still a card, with no target logic.
The card
A card shows one value and its label: total sales, number of orders, average order value. It is the right choice when the number speaks for itself, or when the comparison happens elsewhere on the page. Format it from Format visual → Callout value (size, display units, decimals) and Category label.
The KPI visual
The KPI visual is a card with a judgement built in. It has three wells:
- Value: the measure, for example Sales.
- Trend axis: an ordered field, usually a date or month. The visual shows the value at the last point of this axis and draws the earlier points as a shaded trend behind it.
- Target: a measure to compare with, for example Sales Target.
It then colours the value by status (Format visual → Colors, with Direction: “High is good” or “Low is good”) and shows the gap to the target. Marcus gets this month’s number, a red or green verdict, and the line it came from, in one tile.
Reading Marcus’s year
The chart shows the two lines the KPI visual summarises. Sales beat the target in January, February and from April through August, dipped under it in March and September, recovered in October, and fell short again in November and December, the two biggest months. A December KPI tile would show December’s sales in red, a gap of roughly 10% below target, and a trend climbing into the year end. A plain card would show the same December number and say nothing about any of that.
Where these go on a page
Headline numbers belong at the top, where the eye starts: cards and KPIs in one row, charts in the middle, detail tables at the bottom. Keep the row short: four to six tiles. If everything is a KPI, nothing stands out.
Common mistakes
- A KPI visual with no target. The status colour needs something to compare with.
- A trend axis that isn’t ordered. Categories on the trend axis make the “latest” value meaningless.
- Hard-coded targets. Put targets in a measure or a table so they change with filters; the next level builds one.
Lantern lit!
Practised: cardkpi visualtargettrendstatus
- Solved
- No hints
- First run