KPIs in Communicate

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17 min readUpdated November 3, 2026

A KPI tile puts one number front and center on a dashboard: the value, how it moved since the last period, and a sparkline of how it got there. Build a row of them and anyone opening your dashboard knows how the business is doing before they read a single chart.

A Sales Scorecard dashboard with three KPI tiles: Revenue up 44.9%, Profit at 83% of its Q4 target, and Units sold tinted green

When to use KPIs

The Monday scorecard. Your sales lead opens one dashboard and sees revenue, profit and units for the latest quarter, each with its change from the quarter before.
Tracking against a target. Finance sets a profit goal of $35K. The tile shows how far along you are ("83% of Q4 target") and draws the goal line through the sparkline.
Flagging what needs attention. With 8 KPIs on a board, KPI glow outlines the one that's furthest off, so nobody has to scan for it.
The top of a story. A row of KPIs above the detail charts gives every reader the headline first.

If the first thing your viewers ask is "so how are we doing?", put a KPI at the top.

Add a KPI

Add a chart to your dashboard. On a blank dashboard, choose Begin in the fields. On a busy one, right-click the canvas and choose Add Chart.
With the chart selected, open the More charts menu (the … at the end of the chart types) and choose KPI.
Open Fields and drag a measure (Sales, Profit) onto Value.
Drag a date onto Trend By to draw the sparkline and turn on comparisons.

The More charts menu with KPI highlighted between Sankey diagram and Box plot

The Encoding tab for a KPI, with Sum(Sales) on Value and Quarter(Order Date) on Trend By, next to the Revenue, Profit and Units sold tiles

A KPI takes 2 fields: Value holds the measure, and Trend By holds the date. Plain dimensions like Region don't drop onto a KPI.

From chat:

Add a KPI for total profit with a sparkline by quarter

Build a row of KPIs

Select a KPI, open its ⋮ menu and choose Duplicate. Then drag a different measure onto the copy's Value. Drag each tile by its body next to the one before it, and the layout snaps them into a row.

Starting fresh? Layout templates has a KPI Row + Charts layout: metrics at top, charts below.

The Choose a Layout dialog with KPI Row + Charts selected

KPI options

Select a KPI, open Options, then expand KPI options. Everything below lives there.

Option	What it does
Show label	Shows the measure name above the number.
Footnote	A short line of context under the value.
Show sparkline	Draws the trend from Trend By. On by default.
Sparkline type	Line, Bar or Area.
Show comparison	Shows the change from an earlier period. On by default.
Comparison period	Which period to compare against (see below).
Show period labels	Names the periods, so the comparison reads like "Q4 2025 vs Q3 2025".
Change shows	The change as %, as a Value, or Both.
Value shows	What the big number is (see below).
Show goal	Adds a target, with a Target value and a Label.
Align	Left or Center.
Size	The number's size. Auto fits it to the tile.
Font	The number's typeface.
Value color	A fixed color for the number.
Conditional formatting	Colors the number by thresholds or by trend.

Sparkline type

The Revenue KPI drawn three ways: a Line sparkline, a Bar sparkline, and an Area sparkline

Line is the default. Bar works well for a few periods; Area gives the trend more weight.

What the number shows

Value shows decides the big number:

Choice	The number is
All records	The measure across all your data. The default.
Latest period	The most recent period on Trend By (the latest quarter, say).
Total (Sum)	The sum across all records.
Average	The average across all records.
Minimum / Maximum	The smallest or largest value.
NPS Score	A Net Promoter Score. Only available when Value is a 0 to 10 rating; otherwise the menu reads "NPS Score (requires 0–10 rated measure)".

Tip: A comparison needs periods to compare. With All records, the tile shows one total and no change. Switch to Latest period and the change appears: "+44.9% vs previous period $198.2K".

Comparison period

Choose Previous period (the one before, at whatever grain Trend By uses), Previous day, Previous week, Previous month, Previous quarter, Previous year, or Year to date vs last year.

If your filters leave only one period, the tile says so ("Only one quarter left after filters, so no previous quarter to compare") rather than showing a made-up change.

Goal

Turn on Show goal, enter a Target value and give it a Label. The tile shows progress as a bar and a chip ("83% of Q4 target"), and the sparkline gets a dashed goal line.

Conditional formatting

Turn on Conditional formatting to color the KPI by how it's doing:

Color based on: Value thresholds (you set a Low threshold and High threshold, and Colors for low, mid and high) or Trend direction (green for up, red for down).
Show color on: Number only, Number and card tint, or Number and left edge.
Invert colors flips them, for measures where down is good (returns, churn, cost).

The Units sold KPI with a green number and a green-tinted card, next to the settings: Color based on Trend direction, Show color on Number and card tint

KPI glow

KPI glow is a setting for the whole dashboard. Press Esc so nothing is selected, open Themes in the right panel, and expand KPI glow.

It compares every KPI on the dashboard against its goal, or against its change from the previous period when it has no goal, then outlines the ones that stand out.

The KPI glow settings: Glow set to Single standout, Show set to Negatives and positives, Style Outline, with Negative and Positive colors

Option	What it does
Glow	Off, Single standout (the one most off), or All below (or above) goal or trend.
Show	Negatives and positives, Negatives only, or Positives only.
Style	Outline or Fill.
Negative color / Positive color	The glow colors. Red and green by default.

In the scorecard at the top of this page, Profit glows red (it's short of its target) and Revenue glows green (up 44.9%).

Do it from chat

Chat can add KPIs and change every option above. Ask in plain words.

Add KPIs

Add a Profit KPI

Add a KPI for West region sales

Put the KPIs in a row across the top

Compare and set goals

Compare to last month

Show year to date vs last year

Set a goal of 1M labeled "FY target"

Style

Show the sparkline as bars

Make the KPI number green

Color the value red below 100

Make the KPI that's furthest off target glow

A few things chat does on purpose:

"A KPI for West region sales" is built as a West-only measure, not as a filter, so the tile keeps showing West even when someone changes the dashboard's filters.
If a measure name only partly matches, chat asks instead of guessing.
Ask for an "icon metric" and you get a KPI with the same measure. That's the card Golden uses for single numbers now.

Viewers see exactly what you set. Comparisons, goals, conditional colors and glow all render in the published dashboard.
Dashboard filters apply to KPIs. Filter to one region and every KPI recalculates. If a filter leaves a single period, the comparison steps aside and says why.
Navigation tabs can show a KPI. In a tabbed dashboard, card-style tabs have a Headline metric setting that repeats a KPI's value on the tab, so viewers see the number before they click.

FAQ

Why doesn't my KPI show a comparison? Check 2 things: a date on Trend By, and Value shows set to something period-based like Latest period. All records has nothing to compare.

Why is Show sparkline grayed out? The KPI has no date to plot. Drag a date onto Trend By.

Can a KPI count down, like costs or churn? Yes. Turn on Invert colors under conditional formatting so a drop shows green.

Does KPI glow change the numbers? No. It only outlines tiles. The values, comparisons and goals stay as they are.