If your organization doesn't use English as a primary language, you may want to localize the Project for the web Power BI template so that it works in your preferred language. This article covers the steps needed to accomplish this, using as an example localizing the Project for the web Power BI template in the Brazilian Portuguese language.
Before getting started, make sure you have deployed the Project for the web Power BI template. For more, see Connect to Project data through Power BI Desktop.
What to localize
You can localize many items in the Project for the web Power BI template, including visual elements (charts, tables, cards, and so on), date and number formats, field names, report language, conditional, and custom columns. This article covers localizing all of those elements. However, you can choose to localize only the items that are appropriate to your business needs.
In addition, it is important to notice that each page in the report can consume data from one or more of the queries available. This article only shows how to localize all the items available in the Portfolio Dashboard page. Use the same steps to localize all the other pages per your needs.
Visual titles
To change the title of a visual in the report, select the visual to be adjusted and then select the Visualizations pane. Select the Format command, then expand the Title option:
Figure 1 – Edit titles of visuals
Repeat the same steps for all of the visuals you want to adjust.
Column names
To translate the names of the columns used in the report to your own language, you will have to use the Power Query Editor in Power BI to edit the steps that have been configured in the file. Do this first for the columns related to the project's table, as those columns are largely used in all the visuals across the Portfolio Dashboard page. From the Home tab of Power BI Desktop, select Edit Queries:
Figure 2 – Edit queries
In the query editor you will see all the queries used in the report, and will be able to shape and transform them. For a better experience while using the query editor, make sure that you are displaying the Formula Bar by selecting the View tab and then checking the Formula Bar option.
In the query editor you can see the steps that have been applied to a table by selecting it. To get started, select the Projects table under the Project Service group. The Query Settings pane will display the query’s properties and applied steps. Select the Renamed Columns step:
Figure 3 – Power Query editor
Once you select the step you will see, in the Formula bar, that some of the default columns have been renamed:
At this point you will be able to rename the columns to the language used in your organization. As an example, the default column called “mysdyn_duration”, which had been renamed to “Duration”, will now be translated to “Duração”, which is its corresponding term in the Brazilian Portuguese language. Below you can see the results of the translated columns:
Once you have completed those steps, you can select the Close & Apply command in the Home tab to refresh your report and see the results:
Figure 6 – Updated reports after renaming columns
Custom and conditional columns
The Project for the web Power BI template is configured with custom and conditional columns, which are mainly used to calculate the status of projects and tasks based on certain rules. As they are not part of the default set of columns retrieved from the database, both custom and conditional columns aren’t included in the Renamed Columns step and will have to be individually configured in the query editor.
From the Home tab of Power BI Desktop, select Edit Queries. When selecting the Projects table, locate Added Project Progress Column:
Figure 7 – Custom and conditional columns
To adjust the column, click on the gear to the right of Added Project Progress Column. The query editor will display a new window where you can see how the column was originally configured:
Figure 8 – Add a conditional column
There you will be able to adjust the output of the conditional column:
Figure 9 – Editing the Project Progress column
Important: When adjusting the output of the Project Progress conditional column, do not change the column’s name, as this will cause some visuals to not be properly displayed. Instead, a better approach is to rename the Project Progress term directly in the visuals that use it. Read on for more details.
Once you have completed those steps, you can select the Close & Apply command in the Home tab to refresh your report and see the results. You may want to use the Visualizations pane to reapply the colors to each piece of data of the visual that has been adjusted with the new terms (Projects by Progress):
Figure 10 – Configuring the visual data colors
Final clean up
To finish the adjustments in the Portfolio Dashboard page you may consider renaming a few visuals that will be still displaying information in the default English language. There will be just a few to adjust:
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The Project Progress slicer at the top of the page.
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The table visual that displays detailed information about the project portfolio.
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The cards that display effort, which will still have the designation ‘Hours’ associated to its category label.
Figure 11 – Renaming visual elements in the Portfolio Dashboard page
To adjust the items, you will have to first select the appropriate visual. In the Visualizations page, use the Fields or Values section (depending of the context) to right-click the item and rename it:
Figure 12 – Renaming a field
After you are finished, the Portfolio Dashboard page will be completely localized to your own language:
Figure 13 – Portfolio Dashboard page
Next steps
Now that you have localized the Portfolio Dashboard page, there are a few other things you can work on to improve the localization of the report:
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Format date types: If you want to change the way dates are displayed in the report, you can select the dates to be adjusted in the Fields pane, and then select the Modeling tab in the ribbon. There you will be able to define the date format that is more appropriate to your language.
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Rename report pages: If the page names need to be renamed, you can double click on their names to do so.
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Rename page titles: Each page is in the report is configured with a text box that represents the title of the page. If that needs to be renamed, you can select the text box on each page to do so.
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Configure legends: There are some pages in the report (for example, the Portfolio Milestones page) that use legends to help users understand the meaning of each icon that’s used as a KPI. You will be able to customize your own legends (based on your language) and then use them to replace the default ones.
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Localize the additional pages: You can also continue working on the report to localize the items and contents of the additional pages, so it is fully configured to support your users using their preferred language.
