Designing Power BI Templates for Adoption
Proposed session for SQLBits 2026TL; DR
Templates exist but don't get used. In this session, I'll share my approach to creating Power BI themes and templates that teams actually adopt. You'll leave with ready-to-use assets: theme JSON, starter .pbit, and a rollout checklist.
Session Details
Most organisations have a Power BI template somewhere. A theme JSON file in a Teams folder. Maybe a .pbit that someone created two years ago. And yet, report after report still gets built from scratch, with mismatched colours and inconsistent layouts.
I've seen this pattern repeatedly across consulting engagements: templates exist, but they don't get used. The problem isn't usually technical. It's that templates are built as an afterthought rather than designed for the people who need to use them.
In this session, I'll walk you through my approach to creating Power BI templates that teams actually adopt.
We'll cover:
- Theme JSON structure: colour palettes, typography, and accessibility considerations
- Report templates (.pbit): creating layouts that flex across different report types
- Translating brand guidelines into Power BI without losing your sanity
- Rolling out templates so they actually stick
You'll leave with ready-to-use assets: a theme JSON template, a starter .pbit file, and a rollout checklist. Whether you're building templates for your own team or advising clients, this session gives you everything you need to get it right.
I've seen this pattern repeatedly across consulting engagements: templates exist, but they don't get used. The problem isn't usually technical. It's that templates are built as an afterthought rather than designed for the people who need to use them.
In this session, I'll walk you through my approach to creating Power BI templates that teams actually adopt.
We'll cover:
- Theme JSON structure: colour palettes, typography, and accessibility considerations
- Report templates (.pbit): creating layouts that flex across different report types
- Translating brand guidelines into Power BI without losing your sanity
- Rolling out templates so they actually stick
You'll leave with ready-to-use assets: a theme JSON template, a starter .pbit file, and a rollout checklist. Whether you're building templates for your own team or advising clients, this session gives you everything you need to get it right.
3 things you'll get out of this session
- Theme JSON structure: colour palettes, typography, and accessibility considerations
- Report templates (.pbit): creating layouts that flex across different report types
- Translating brand guidelines into Power BI without losing your sanity
- Rolling out templates so they actually stick
Speakers
Prathyusha(Prathy) Kamasani's other proposed sessions for 2026
Building End-to-End Data Analytics Solutions with Microsoft Fabric and Open Data - 2026
Fabric BI Architecture: Patterns, Workspaces, and Trade-offs - 2026
Fabric Tenant Settings: The Decisions Behind What's Open and What's Closed - 2026
Making Sense of Fabric Capacity: Start, Monitor, Scale - 2026
Prathyusha(Prathy) Kamasani's previous sessions
One dataset and three use cases with Microsoft Fabric
Are you curious about how to leverage Open Data with Fabric? In this demo filled session, I will show you how I import World Bank Open Data into Fabric using different methods: Pipelines, Data factory Gen-II, Notebooks and a mix of all three. Then I will demonstrate how I do modelling using Warehouse, Power BI Dataset model and Notebooks. Finally, I will create stunning reports using Power BI.
By the end of the session, attendees will get an idea of how each artifact would work, why one would use one over other artifacts, and understand how to create an end-to-end solution with Microsoft Fabric
Powering Up Your Power BI Development Workflow with Microsoft Fabric Notebooks
Are you excited about Microsoft Fabric and its Notebooks feature, but also feel overwhelmed by the different languages it supports, this session is for you. You will learn the basics of Python and Spark, and how to use Notebooks to write and run code. You will also discover how to leverage tools like CoPilot to assist you with code suggestions and corrections. Moreover, you will see how to use libraries like SemPy to enrich your Power BI development with advanced analytics. Join Prathy in this session and get ready to explore the possibilities of Notebooks in Microsoft Fabric.