As a data visualization and analytics platform, Power BI provides a vast array of features and functionality for report authors to develop compelling content to help users derive insights. Given the volume of features and possible formatting configurations, report authors and BI teams will want to follow a set of report planning and design practices to ensure consistently, quality report content is delivered to stakeholders. These practices include report planning in terms of scope, users and use cases, data visualization practices, and the selection of visuals. 

The Report planning, Visualization best practices, and Choosing the visual sections earlier in this chapter provided details on many of the recommended practices to develop effective and sustainable report content. At a standard summary-level review of a report and the implementation of these practices, perhaps at the conclusion of a development phase and prior to deployment, the following list of questions can be asked:

1. Does the report have a clear scope and use case?
   • The report addresses specific business questions of value to specific users or teams that will consume the report
   • The relationship and distinction between this report and other reports or dashboards that the users will have access to is understood 
   • The pages of the report naturally relate to one another to address the same or closely-related business questions, perhaps at alternative levels of detail
2. Have standard visualization practices been followed?
   • The visuals have proper spacing, alignment, and symmetry 
   • The reports use colors selectively and there are clear titles on report pages and visuals 
   • The report is intuitive and not cluttered with unnecessary details
3. Have the right visuals been chosen to represent the data?
   • Tables and matrices were used when cross-referencing or looking up individual values was necessary
   • The type of data relationship to represent (for example, comparison) and the relative advantages of the different visuals, such as line charts for the trends of a value, drove the visual choice
4.  Does the report enable the user to easily apply filters and explore the data?
   • Slicer visuals for common or important columns have been utilized and are easily accessible to users
   • The filtering and cross-highlighting interactions between the visuals on the report pages have been considered and configured appropriately
   • Hierarchies of columns have been built into certain visuals to allow a simple drill-up and drill-down experience
5. Does the report aid the user in identifying insights or exceptions?
   • Dynamic formatting, such as with KPI visuals and conditional formatting rules and techniques, has been applied
   • Tooltips have been added to report visuals to provide the user with additional context hovering over the visual such as the columns in a column chart or the data points in a line chart.
6. Have simple and sustainable filter conditions been applied at the appropriate scope?
   • Report and page-level filter scopes have been applied to minimize the resources required by the queries generated by the report:
     • Visual-level filters are only used when the visual needs to reflect an alternative filter context of the report and page-level filter scopes
   • Report filter conditions are not being used to address issues with data quality or the source dataset: 
     •  Efforts have been made (or will be made) to enhance the source dataset to better support the report
   • Filter conditions on the date dimension are dynamic and sustainable (for example, Current Year and Prior Year) rather than hardcoded values (for example, 2018 and 2017)