Flow Chart turns a set of ordered columns into a process diagram. Each column you drop into Levels becomes one stage of the flow, repeated values merge into shared branches, and the Value measure sets the weight of every node and link. Everything below is documented against version 1.0.2.0 of the visual.
Import Flow Chart from AppSource, or from a .pbiviz file via
Insert → More visuals → Import a visual from a file. Drop it onto the canvas and give it
room — process diagrams need horizontal space more than height.
Drag one field per stage into Levels, in the order the process happens. Field order is the structure: the first field is the root layer, the second the next layer, and so on. Rows that share the same value at a given level are merged into one node, which is how branches form.
Add a measure to Value. Node badges, link thickness and the dominant path are all derived from it.
Nodes are the states, links are the transitions between them, and link thickness is proportional to Value. The dominant path — the heaviest chain through the diagram — is emphasised by default. A transition that goes backwards in the process is detected as a cycle and drawn as a discontinuous loop instead of being forced into the layer order.
A Target measure turns on the KPI badge on each node (actual against target, with the variation percentage). A Swimlane field draws coloured bands across the levels. Measures in Tooltip fields appear on hover without changing the layout.
Six field wells. Only Levels and Value are needed to draw a diagram.
| Field well | Accepts | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levels | Grouping fields | Yes | One field per stage, in process order. Defines the layers of the diagram; repeated values merge into shared nodes. Add fields to go deeper, reorder them to restructure the flow. |
| Level images | Measure | No | Base64 image strings, one per level, supplied by your data model. Rendered inside the node chips. Nothing is fetched from the network — if the string is not in the model, no image appears. |
| Value | Measure | Yes | The weight of each node and link. Drives badge numbers, link thickness, the dominant path and the variants ranking. |
| Target | Measure | No | Enables the KPI badge. Each node shows its value against target with a variation percentage, coloured by the KPI up/down colours. |
| Swimlane | Grouping field | No | Draws coloured bands across the levels so you can see which part of the organisation or which phase owns each stage. |
| Tooltip fields | Measures | No | Extra measures shown on hover. Report page tooltips are supported as well — see Interaction. |
Seven cards, listed in the order they appear in the pane. Default values are given so you can always get back to the starting point.
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Left to right | Or top to bottom. Left to right suits long processes; top to bottom suits deep hierarchies in a narrow visual. |
| Spacing between nodes | 24 | Gap within a layer. Lower it when a level has many branches. |
| Spacing between levels | 100 | Gap between layers. This is the setting to raise when links get hard to follow. |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Node width | 140 | Chip width in pixels. |
| Node height | 36 | Chip height in pixels. |
| Corner radius | 6 | 0 for square chips. |
| Font family | Segoe UI | Also Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Consolas. |
| Label size | 12 | Node label size in points. |
| Text color | #FFFFFF | Label colour. Pair it with the node colours below. |
| Show value badge in chip | On | Off hides the number and leaves only the label. |
| Badge font / size | Segoe UI / 9 | Badge typography, set independently of the label. |
| Badge text color | #FFFFFF | |
| Badge background | #000000 | Only visible once opacity is above zero. |
| Badge background opacity % | 0 | Transparent by default, so the badge sits directly on the node colour. |
| KPI up color | #3E9C5B | Applied when the value beats target. |
| KPI down color | #C9524A | Applied when it misses. |
| Border width | 0 | No border by default. |
| Border color | #FFFFFF | |
| Color border by level | Off | On takes the border colour from the level palette instead. |
| Show node shadow | Off | |
| Shadow color | #000000 |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Number format | Thousands (1,234) | Also Plain, Compact (1.2K / 3.4M) and Percent. |
| Decimal places | 0 | |
| Prefix | — | For example a currency symbol. |
| Suffix | — | For example a unit. |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Link color | #B7C0D8 | |
| Base link width | 2 | Thickness before the value weighting is applied. |
| Curvature | 0.5 | 0 gives straight connectors. |
| Highlight dominant path | On | Emphasises the heaviest chain through the diagram. |
| Dominant path thickness × | 1.3 | Multiplier applied to that path. |
| Highlight top end-to-end variant | Off | Traces the single most frequent complete route instead. |
| Top variant color | #F5A623 | Colour used for that route. |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Show swimlane bands | On | Only has an effect when the Swimlane field well is filled. |
| Label size | 11 | |
| Label font | Segoe UI | Also Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Consolas. |
| Label color | #666666 | |
| Band 1–4 colors | #2B6CB0, #3E9C5B, #D9A441, #8E5FC4 | Cycled across the lanes. |
| Band opacity % | 6 | Deliberately faint so bands read as background, not as data. |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Show legend | On | Single toggle. |
| Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Default node color | #6B7A99 | Used when colouring by level is off, and for any level past the sixth. |
| Color nodes by level | On | Off paints every node in the default colour. |
| Level 1–6 colors | #2B6CB0, #3E9C5B, #D9A441, #8E5FC4, #C9524A, #0E9AA7 | One colour per layer, up to six. |
Clicking a node or a link filters the rest of the report through the standard Power BI selection model. Ctrl+click adds to the selection; clicking empty space clears it. Selections made in other visuals dim the parts of the diagram that fall outside them, and the visual takes part in slicer state synchronisation.
Standard tooltips show the node or link with its value, plus anything in Tooltip fields. Report page tooltips are supported too, including on links: point the visual at a tooltip page and it will be used instead of the default card.
Zoom, native scrolling, a minimap, in-diagram search and a fit-to-view control. Collapsing a mid-level node folds its branch away and recalculates the values downstream, which is usually a faster way to read a wide process than zooming out.
Lists the top eight end-to-end paths by value. Selecting one traces it on the diagram, which answers “what actually happens most of the time” without rebuilding the model.
The diagram is reachable with the keyboard: Tab moves focus into it, the arrow keys move between nodes, Enter selects and Escape clears the selection. Focus is visible at all times.
When Power BI is in a high-contrast theme the visual takes its colours from the host palette rather than the Format Pane. Because fill cannot carry meaning in that mode, emphasis is re-coded as border weight: the dominant path and the selected node are distinguished by thicker outlines, not by colour.
| Free Free | Pro Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Nodes per diagram | Up to 9 | No node cap (Power BI row limit applies) |
| KPI badges, swimlanes, dominant path, variants | Included | Included |
| Collapse / expand, zoom, minimap, search | Included | Included |
| Full Format Pane | Included | Included |
| Cross-filtering, tooltips, keyboard, high contrast | Included | Included |
Every feature is unlocked in the Free tier. The only limit is size: Free renders up to nine nodes, kept as a connected sub-tree from the root so the diagram still makes sense, with a message telling you how many nodes were left out. Pro removes the limit.
Pro is licensed through Microsoft AppSource. The licence is checked with the official Power BI licensing API, asynchronously and off the rendering path, and falls back to Free if the check cannot be completed. No external server is involved. See the Terms of Use for what each tier includes.
Flow Chart needs at least one field in Levels and a measure in Value. With Levels alone there is nothing to weight the nodes with, and nothing is drawn.
Order comes from the order of the fields in the Levels well, not from the data. Drag the fields into the sequence the process actually follows.
That is the Free tier limit. The nine nodes shown are a connected sub-tree from the root rather than an arbitrary slice, and a message reports how many were omitted. Pro removes the limit.
The licence check runs asynchronously, so give the visual a moment after the report loads. If the limit persists, confirm the Pro subscription is assigned to the account viewing the report — not only to the account that bought it — then refresh. If it still does not resolve, email support@tcviz.com with the report and the account in question.
Those are cycles: transitions that return to an earlier stage. They are detected and drawn as discontinuous loops rather than being forced into the layer order, so rework and retry loops stay visible instead of distorting the diagram.
It needs a measure in the Target well. Also check that Show value badge in chip is on under Nodes.
Yes. The Format Pane offers six level colours; levels beyond the sixth are drawn in the default node colour. The structure itself is not capped at six.
Band opacity is 6% by default, on purpose — bands are context, not data. Raise Band opacity % under Swimlanes if you want them more prominent.
No. There are no network calls, no telemetry and no browser storage. Everything is computed from the Power BI data view inside the report. The Privacy Policy spells this out.
Level images expects base64 strings that already live in your data model. The visual does not fetch images from URLs, so a column of links will not render.
Email support@tcviz.com, or open an issue on GitHub. Including your Power BI Desktop version and the visual version (1.0.2.0) gets you an answer faster.