Get more out of Barcodes using Power BI
- mandarp0
- Jun 4, 2024
- 4 min read
You can now scan Barcode in Power BI and directly go to the filtered version of related reports.Upon scanning the barcode you will get a list of all the reports containing that barcode. You can then open one of the reports to get the filtered data that you need.Use Cases:
1. Retail Employees : Lazlo, a retail manager at Best Buy, uses Power BI's barcode feature to efficiently manage inventory and make informed decisions. Suspecting low stock of BAT! Noise Cancelling headphones, Lazlo quickly checks the inventory using his mobile phone and Power BI app instead of running to the warehouse to check the stock in the warehouse computer. By scanning the product's barcode, he accesses the Inventory Report which filters data specifically for BAT! Noise Cancelling Headphones, revealing only 30 units left in stock.
To assess demand, Lazlo opens the Sales Report from the list of reports associated with the scanned barcode . Analysing the sales report, he discovers that only 20 units of BAT! headphones were sold in the last 3 months, indicating low demand for the product. With this information, Lazlo decides not to restock the item at the moment. Lazlo was able to come to this Informed decision in just a few minutes and most importantly without moving more than a finger and a thumb.
2. Engineers in manufacturing plant : Angela Spica, overseeing production, notices a delay in fulfilling the Authority Corps. order. She decides to investigate by scanning the machine's barcode in Power BI. This action opens a KPI report, revealing that the machine has been operating at only 40% of its target productivity due to frequent and rapid overheating. Angela promptly instructs the team to add coolant to the machine to address the issue. Additionally, she informs the sales manager about the delay in fulfilling the Authority Corps. order.
How to integrate Barcodes in Power BI Reports.
Barcodes are unique for each product and not each item. An identical product with different discounts applied to them should be categorised as 2 separate products. Since barcodes are unique, it can be used as the primary key and hence can be used to filter data.
Steps to make Power BI identify Barcodes:
In Power BI Desktop, switch to data view.
Select the Barcode column in your data.
On the Column tools tab, select Data category : Barcode.
In the Report view, add the barcode field to the visuals you want filtered by the barcode.
Note : Do not categorise more than one column across all data tables in a report as Barcode. If a report has more than one barcode column, no filtering takes place.
Power BI recognizes these barcode formats if you can tag them in a Power BI report:
UPCECode
Code39Code
A39Mod43Code
EAN13Code
EAN8Code
93Code
128Code
PDF417Code
Interleaved2of5Code
ITF14Code
How to scan Barcodes in Power BI Mobile App.
On the Power BI Mobile app, click on the camera icon on the top right corner of the home page.
Point the scanner at a barcode on the item you're interested in. You will see a list of reports that have barcode fields.
Find the report you're looking for and tap to open it on your device, automatically filtered according to the barcode you scanned. If the report doesn't contain the barcode, you'll get the message "Couldn't filter report". In that case you can go back to the list and try another report.
Note: The Barcode icon in the report's action bar is active, not greyed out. This indicates that the report is currently filtered by the barcode.
Select the Clear Barcode icon if you want to clear the filter and return to the unfiltered report.
FIlter the Same report by different barcode
While looking at a report filtered by a barcode on your device, you might want to filter the same report by a different barcode.
On the report's action bar, tap the Barcode icon.
A floating scanner opens with a small menu.
Focus the scanner on the new item to change the filter of the report to a different barcode value.
Tap Clear barcode filter to go back to the unfiltered report.
Tap Filter by recent barcodes to change the report filter to one of the barcodes you've scanned within the current session.
Limitations
The Filters pane gives no indication of barcode filtering. To know whether a report is currently filtered by a barcode, look at the barcode icons on the report footer:
Indicates that the report is currently filtered by a barcode.
Indicates that the report is currently not filtered by a barcode.
Troubleshooting for the report users
You get a message Couldn't filter report - Looks like this barcode doesn't exist in the report data: This means that the value of the barcode you scanned doesn't appear in the data model of the report you chose to filter.
You get a message: Looks like you don't have any reports that can be filtered by barcodes: This means you don't have any barcode-enabled reports. The barcode scanner can only filter reports that have a column marked as Barcode.
Filtering returns an empty state. This could mean that the barcode value you scanned exists in your model, but all or some of the visuals in your report don't contain this value.
Reference:
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