Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I navigate using the keyboard inside the PowerBI report?

The PowerBI report within the Web Page is split into three main sections. The first section is the main dashboard area, the second section is the tab area at the bottom of the report and the third section is the Filter Pane. In order to move between the three sections, the user has to use the Ctrl-F6 combination keys. Once in a section please use the Tab key to navigate through the elements.

How do I know when I have reached the PowerBI report using keyboard navigation?

Once you have tabbed through the html elements of the web page, you will enter the PowerBI report when the screen reader reads “Microsoft Power BI”. At that point Ctrl-F6 will take you to the different sections of the report. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-Enter and navigate to the Skip to Main Content link and press Enter. Using the keyboard navigation Tab key will produce more consistent results than using the Arrow keys.

How do I use the Filter Pane with Keyboard Only Navigation?

The Filters Pane on the right of each of the Power BI dashboards, gives us access to filters in our reports to help us focus on the data and information most interesting to us. There are currently some limitations in the use of the filters pane, while using the keyboard navigation experience.

To navigate with the keyboard, we will need to do the following:

• First, we use our Ctrl + F6 command to navigate from our Visualization canvas, to the Page Switch tabs, to our Filters pane.
• Second, Using the Tab button, you can navigate to the desired set of filters you would like to change.
• Next, we navigate to the "Expand" arrow to the right of the filter title. This will open up the options we can select in our filters.
• Use Tab to navigate to the first item in the selection list, and then navigate the list with the arrow keys.
• Press Enter or Space Bar to select the option you would like to filter on.
• Use Tab to navigate to the Apply filter button and press Space Bar or Enter to apply.

At this point, the navigation focus will reset to the top of the Filters Pane. This means you may need to re-navigate through some earlier filters, to get further down the list.

How do I Get my Screen Reader to Read Out Numbers on Graphs and Updates?

You can prompt your screen reader to read out the values on a visualization by pressing the Control + Right Arrow key combination, while a visualization is selected. This command also allows you to interact with specific data points within the visualization. Press Escape to return out of the data interaction area, to the data visualization object and use Tab to continue navigation.

As an alternative, you can also use Alt + Shift + F11 to open a "Show Data" pane for the visualization, in full screen, this allows you to interact with the data via an HTML table object. Make sure you use your screen reader's commands to interact with this table object. For example, Windows Narrator will automatically read the data in the HTML table object, while JAWS will require you to press F8 to read the data in the HTML table object. You will need to press the Escape key to leave this Show Data pane.

Upon exiting the Show Data pane, the navigation selection context is reset outside the Power BI dashboard, this behaviour is currently being corrected by Microsoft. You will need to use Ctrl + F6 or Tab to re-enter the dashboard before resuming your navigation of the dashboard.

What Screen Readers Can I Use?

Power BI dashboards can be read by JAWS as well as the pre-installed Windows Narrator for Windows 10 and Windows 7.