Power BI - Getting started

This article provides step by step guidance on how to obtain crucial supply chain insights, including traceability and certification details from Power BI reports. This link redirects to the Rainforest Customer Reporting in Power BI.

1. Training Material Videos

You can access the Traceability training material video below:

The Traceability report has six different tabs, presented in the following order:

1.1. Origin Footprint

1.2. Purchases

1.3. Multi-ingredient Purchases

1.4. Type, variety and traceability level

1.5. Sales

1.6. Transaction Status Overview

2. Power BI Introduction

Power BI is a data visualization tool provided by Microsoft. The Power BI Service connects to data sources and offers graphical visualizations: 

• Tables
• Graphs
• Pie Charts
• Maps
• Etc.

The reports on the Rainforest Alliance Reporting Platform are based on the information as provided by Certification Holders in the Certification and Traceability ‘source’ systems:

• Multitrace (MTT)
• Marketplace (MP2)
• Salesforce (SAN)
• Good Inside Portal (GIP) 

3. Access, Data Confidentiality and Disclaimer

External users can only get access if their email has been added to our Power BI External User Security Group. 

External users can only see information for the accounts where they have been setup as a user in our ‘source’ systems: 

• Multitrace (MTT)
• MarketPlace (MP2)
• Goods Insight Portal (GIP) 

External customers are responsible maintaining their users in the ‘source’ systems.

For information, RA’s Privacy policy can be found here.

4. Power BI Tips & Tricks

On screen information and help

Glossary Page: Gives info on measures and dimensions used in the report.

Explanations Page: A detailed explanation of all visuals.

Hover over a data point: Gives info on the information on the visual. This does not work for tables.

Export versus Export Data

Export: Top left corner: Download the whole report as PDF or PowerPoint.

Export Data: To get Excel format:

1. 'Hover' over the visual and click on the 3 dots on the top right corner of the visual. Select 'Export data'.

2. Choose '.xlsx' (more records possible) and click 'Export'.

3. Open the downloaded .xlsx file. Check if the number of rows is less than 150,000. If more, then filter the results further to reduce the number of records.

Bookmarks

It allows saving of different filter settings. This is useful when you want to slice and dice the report always in the same way, saving time.

1. Select your filter settings.

2. Click on Bookmarks in the top right corner of the page.

3. Select 'Add a personal bookmark': Fill in a meaningful name. Tick the box if you want this to be the default setting. Press save.

Filters

On the left hand side of the page, you'll find filters, like for instance: 

Clicking on the down arrow at the right-hand side gives a drop-down menu. Click the desired choice, for multiple choices press the control key while selecting:

If you’re looking for a specific entry in a long list, type part of the word in the search bar.

To clear a filter, click on the ‘eraser’ icon:  

Drilling

When hovering over a visual that contains a hierarchy (e.g. date, or ‘expandable’ tables) the following icons appear in the top right corner:

1. This option only appears for a table with expandable rows and columns. It determines if drilling needs to be done on the rows or on the columns.
2. This option will drill up when clicking on a hierarchy item. It’s greyed out if info is shown on the highest level already.
3. This option drills down only the selected hierarchy item. E.g., if the column headers show 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2019 is clicked, it will show the quarters for 2019 only.
4. This option aggregates all data for the next level, so in the example above, it will aggregate all Q1 data for 2019, 2020 and 2021, all Q2 data for these years, etc. So, only quarters are shown and no years.
5. This option drill down one level for all items, so it will show all quarters for all years.

Changing the visual

Focus: When hovering over a visual the top right corner shows the following icon: 

Clicking this icon will enlarge the visual to full screen size. To return to the full report, click on "Back to report" in the top left corner.

Spotlight: When hovering over a visual the top right corner shows 3 dots. Clicking reveals a dropdown menu. One of the options is a torch. This icon will grey out the whole page except for the chosen visual. Click the torch again to go back to the standard view.

Sort the data: Clicking on the 3 dots again shows, if applicable for the visual, options to sort ascending or descending and, if applicable, a ‘sort by’ option:

General tips

• The glossary contains the descriptions of the measures and variables used on the report.
• First change /check filters.
• Hover over the different data points in the visuals to see how you can interpret the information and to see the total purchased/sold volume.
• You can drill down on different timeframes.
• You can also filter/highlight the data by clicking on the graphs and tables.
• For multiple choices press the control key while selecting (not applicable to account/crop filter in certification report).

What can you find?

Customer Certification (RA2020)

• How much of my purchased volumes from RA2020 farm CH since 2021 represents out of the total potential supply of certified volume?
• What’s the proportion of the purchased volume that came from the different types of farm CH?
• What percentage of my purchases were done as segregated or mass balance?
• What percentage of the farm CH that I source volumes from had non-conformities (NCs)? (also split by country)
• What is the ratio of NC out of total possible requirements for those farm CH that had NC?
• By type of NC and country, from the farm CH that I source volumes from had NC? What types of NC were there and what % of farm CH had NC? (Breakdown by country, subtype)

 Customer Traceability Report

• Where do I buy most of my volumes?
• How many producer CH/farms am I purchasing from? In what countries are they?
• Per origin, who are my top producers?
• How much equivalent volume was purchased by origin?
• Who are my top suppliers? Per supplier, where is this origin?
• Year trend of redeemed and purchased equivalent volume.
• How much total multi-ingredient equivalent volume was purchased by Origin Country and Seller CH?
• How much multi-ingredient volume was purchased out of the total purchased volume (multi-ingredient and not multi-ingredient)?
• How much does a multi-ingredient product weigh? How much equivalent multi-ingredient volume contains a certain multi-ingredient product? 
• From a certain multi-ingredient product, which is the information regarding Seller CH, Origin Country, Farm CH, and Crop?
• How much volume (non-equivalent) was purchased over time by sub-product?
• How much volume (non-equivalent) was purchased over time by variety?
• How much volume (equivalent) was purchased over time by traceability level?
• What type of products am I buying from whom and how does that look across the years?
• How much am I selling by origin and by year?
• To whom am I selling most of my volumes and where are they located?
• What is the origin of the volumes sold?
• How much equivalent volumes I am transacting by status?
• How many transactions I am performing by status?

Release Notes