Translations in Power BI PRO

For some time, semantic model translations in Power BI were only available for Power BI Premium capacities. However, this has changed, and now translations also work with a Power BI Pro license.

Microsoft provides very detailed documentation on localizing reports:
Localizing Power BI Reports

I highly recommend going through it.

When implementing multi-language reports, you might encounter some user experience challenges, such as:

• How to translate both the report and data layer by default?
• How to allow users to switch languages regardless of their default user culture?

Let’s explore these topics!

Translating both report and data layer by default.

Translating all report elements can be challenging because different elements require specific solutions:

1. Tables, measures, and columns
   • The best way to translate them is by using metadata translations, utilizing tools like Translations Builder or Tabular Editor.

1. Visualization texts, titles, etc.
   • You need to use switch measures and filter the language in the filter context.

1. Data translations
   • The optimal approach is to use field parameters and filter them via relationships in the data model.

Once all three components are ready, you need to combine the filter context with the user culture. To achieve this, you can use bookmarks and apply filters to the language table.

Challenges with Synchronizing Language Context

Unfortunately, it’s currently impossible to fully synchronize slicer selections with the user culture. As a workaround, you must set up a default language selection (unless you're embedding reports, in which case you can create links dynamically based on the logged-in user’s culture).

How This Works for Users

In Power BI Service, when a user opens a report, they will see the default language context as well as their user culture. This is not ideal, as the two may differ.

To address this, you can create links for each language and pass two parameters:

1. User culture
2. Bookmark ID (you can find the Bookmark ID in Power BI Service or in .pbip files).

Constructing Report URLs

To build a specific report URL, you need a few parameters:

• WorkspaceID
• ReportID
• LanguageID
• BookmarkGUID

The URL format looks like this:

https://app.powerbi.com/groups/me/apps/WorkspaceID/reports/ReportID?experience=power-bi&language=LanguageID&bookmarkGuid=BookmarkGUID

Now you can share reports through that links or create buttons for users to change it manually (regardless of their culture).