---
title: BI Insight
description: Build dashboards on top of your governed Insight data.
order: 14
---

# BI Insight

BI Insight turns your governed Insight data into dashboards. It doesn't define
any new data of its own — every chart it draws reads from the same semantic
models your Insight add-on already exposes, so what you see on a dashboard is
exactly what's approved for reporting, nothing more.

## Requirements

BI Insight requires the **Insight** add-on to be enabled on your tenant.
Insight is where you define semantic models — the governed dimensions and
metrics your business reports on. BI Insight reads those models to build
visuals; it has no data of its own to fall back on, so turn on Insight first.

## What you get

- **Dashboards** — a named collection of visuals you arrange on a grid.
- **Visuals** — individual charts, each backed by one Insight model.
- **A live preview** while you build, so you see the chart update as you pick
  its model, category, value, and type — before you save anything.
- **A responsive grid layout** — each visual gets a size (small, medium, or
  large) and reflows to fit the screen.

## Visual types

| Type | Best for |
|---|---|
| Bar | Comparing a metric across categories |
| Line | A metric trending over time |
| KPI number | A single headline metric |
| Table | Row-level detail across a category |
| Pie / donut | Share of a metric across categories |

## Build a dashboard

1. Create a dashboard and give it a name.
2. Add a visual. Pick the **Insight model** it reads from, a **category**
   (the dimension you're grouping by) and a **value** (the metric you're
   measuring), then choose a chart type.
3. Check the live preview — it renders against your real data as you adjust
   the selections.
4. Save the visual, then resize and arrange it on the dashboard's grid
   alongside your other visuals.

Add as many visuals as you need; each one can point at a different Insight
model, so a single dashboard can bring together metrics from across your
governed data.

## Filtering your dashboards

Once a dashboard has a few visuals on it, you'll usually want to slice the
whole thing down to one segment at a time. BI Insight gives you two ways to
do that.

- **Cross-filtering** — click a bar, pie slice, or table row in any visual
  to filter the rest of the dashboard to that value. Every other visual
  grouped by the same field updates to match; visuals that aren't grouped
  by that field are left alone. Click the same bar, slice, or row again to
  clear the filter.
- **Filter controls** — add a dropdown filter to a dashboard by picking the
  field you want to filter on. Choose a single value or several, and every
  visual that includes that field is constrained to match. Add as many
  filter controls as your dashboard needs, and use **Clear all** to remove
  every active filter at once.
- **Range filters** — for date and number fields, add a range filter with a
  **from** and **to** box instead of a dropdown. Set both ends to bracket a
  window (say, orders between two dates, or amounts from 100 to 500), or fill
  in just one side for an open-ended "on or after" / "up to" filter. Like any
  filter control, a range constrains every visual that includes that field.

Cross-filtering and filter controls work together — a click on a chart and
a dropdown selection can both be active on the same dashboard at the same
time.

## Drilling into a chart

Give a chart a **drill hierarchy** — an ordered list of fields, like
*region → city → store* — when you build it. Clicking a bar, slice, or row
then drops that chart down to the next level, showing only the values under
the one you clicked (click *West* on a region chart and it re-draws by city,
just for the West region). A breadcrumb across the top of the chart shows
where you are; click any step in it to jump back up a level.

Drilling stays inside the chart you clicked — the rest of the dashboard is
left as-is. Only charts you've given a hierarchy drill; a chart without one
keeps its click behavior for cross-filtering.

## Packaged dashboards: Manufacturing

Apps can ship dashboards built on their own governed models. The
[Manufacturing](/docs/apps/manufacturing) app pairs with BI Insight to
provide three persona dashboards over its shop-floor data:

- **Ops Control Tower** — work-order status and labor, WIP by material,
  and planning coverage.
- **Quality & Compliance** — defect Pareto and severity, OEE by work
  center, and engineering-change activity.
- **Cost & Value** — procurement spend, WIP value, and cost / variance.

They read the same Insight semantic models your other reporting uses,
so they respect the same governance — and you can extend or rebuild
them in the dashboard builder like any other BI Insight dashboard.

## Where to find it

Open the **BI Insight** section in your tenant portal navigation to create
and manage dashboards.