A readable treemap in Power BI: groups, totals and zoom

In short

What is a treemap? A treemap splits a rectangle into tiles whose area is proportional to a value. Tiles of the same family sit together: you see at a glance what weighs the most, and in which group.

Mini example. A store chain makes $100,000 in revenue: $60,000 in the North East (of which $40,000 in furniture and $20,000 in lighting) and $40,000 in the West. The rectangle is cut into two groups: the North East takes 60% of the area, the West 40%; within the North East, furniture takes two thirds.

• What the visual does. Treemap Plume shows up to six nested levels (region, city, category…), each group with its header and its total. Labels grow with their tiles and wrap instead of being cut. Clicking a header zooms into the group; a breadcrumb takes you back. A year in Play axis ★ animates the treemap from one year to the next (premium feature).
• When to use it. Splitting a total across many hierarchical categories: revenue by region and product, budget by department and line item, stock by warehouse and family, a portfolio by sector and stock.
• When to prefer something else. Comparing a few values precisely or following a trend over time: Bar Plume or Line Plume. Negative values (losses, variances): Waterfall Plume.
• What you will be able to do. Prepare a table, create the measure, insert the visual on two levels, read the headers and totals, zoom into a group, sort the tiles.
• What you need: Power BI Desktop, the Treemap Plume visual installed (see the common basics), a table with categories and an amount. The sample report PlumeTreemap-Sample-EN, in your "Downloads" area, shows a home store chain's sales by region and category (page 1), colors by a measure and exploration (page 2) and the ★ features (page 3), including the 2023 → 2025 animation.

The data to provide

The shape. One row per sale (or per combination of categories) with the columns that form the hierarchy, from the largest group to the smallest, and an amount.

Region	Category	Amount
London	Furniture	41,200
London	Lighting	18,900
London	Decor	12,400
South East	Furniture	27,300
South East	Lighting	11,800
North West	Furniture	19,600
North West	Decor	9,100
Scotland	Furniture	10,400
Scotland	Lighting	5,200
Scotland	Decor	4,300

To try it without a file: Modeling › New table, then paste:

Sales =
DATATABLE (
    "Region", STRING, "Category", STRING, "Amount", DOUBLE,
    {
        { "London", "Furniture", 41200 },
        { "London", "Lighting", 18900 },
        { "London", "Decor", 12400 },
        { "South East", "Furniture", 27300 },
        { "South East", "Lighting", 11800 },
        { "North West", "Furniture", 19600 },
        { "North West", "Decor", 9100 },
        { "Scotland", "Furniture", 10400 },
        { "Scotland", "Lighting", 5200 },
        { "Scotland", "Decor", 4300 }
    }
)

The measure. The Values well expects a measure (a calculation Power BI recomputes for the filters, written in DAX; see the glossary):

Revenue = SUM ( Sales[Amount] )   -- adds up the amounts of each tile, each group and the total

Pitfalls.

• The Category (groups) columns go from the largest group to the smallest: Region first, then Category. The order of the fields in the well gives the order of the levels.
• Negative values have no area: they count as 0 (a message says so in edit mode). For positive and negative variances, prefer Waterfall Plume or the diverging colors ★ (see the how-to guide).
• With no measure in Values, the visual counts rows: handy for an inventory (number of products per family).

Step by step: your first treemap in 10 minutes

1. In the Visualizations pane, click the Treemap Plume icon. An empty frame appears, with a landing page listing the fields to drop; make it larger.
2. Drag Region into Category (groups), then Category just below it, in the same well.
3. Drag the Revenue measure into Values. The treemap appears: the largest region at the top left, each region with a header in its color (name and total), its categories as shaded tiles.
4. Read a tile: the name in bold, the value below. Hover it: the tooltip gives the full path (region, category), the value, the share of the group and the share of the total.
5. Click the London header: the treemap zooms into this region, with a transition. At the top, the breadcrumb shows "↑ All › London".
6. Click All in the breadcrumb (or ↑) to go back to all regions.
7. Click a tile: the other visuals of the page filter on this region and category (cross-filtering, see the glossary). Ctrl + click to add another one; click an empty area of the visual to clear.
8. Open Format › Layout › Tiling › Tile order and choose Name (A → Z): regions and their categories are sorted alphabetically, the first one at the top left.
9. Open Format › Data colors: one color per region is offered, each one editable.

Expected result: the regions as groups with a header and their total, the categories as readable tiles with their value (their share in the tooltip), a zoom when clicking a header and a way back through the breadcrumb.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Likely cause	Fix
The landing page stays	No field in Category (groups) or Details	Add at least one category column
Regions are in the tiles and categories in the headers	The fields are in the wrong order	In the well, drag Region above Category
"… negative value(s) ignored"	Negative amounts	Expected: an area cannot be negative; see the how-to guide
A tile with no label	The tile is too small for readable text	Make the visual larger, or lower Format › Data labels › Hide in tiles narrower than (px)
No headers	Groups too small, or headers turned off	Format › Groups (headers and borders) › Group headers: on; make the visual larger
All tiles have the same size	Values is empty (rows counted) or the measure returns 1	Put the amount measure in Values
"Premium preview" watermark	A ★ feature is used without a key	Key in Format › Plume Studio License, or a free setting
"… very small tiles merged into their group's color"	More than 4,000 visible tiles	Expected: they stay in the totals; zoom into a group to see them

Key takeaways

• One column per level, from the largest group to the smallest, and a measure in Values.
• Each group has its header with its total; clicking it zooms in, the breadcrumb brings you back.
• Labels grow with the tiles; a tile that is too small stays without text rather than showing "C…".
• Everything on this page is free; the play axis, shares in labels, colors by tile, diverging or by thresholds, Voronoi, the stock map, Top N, images and small multiples are ★.

Learn more

• Treemap Plume how-to guide: recipes for common needs.
• Treemap Plume fields and settings: every field well and every setting.
• Getting started with Plume visuals: installation, license, styles and common settings.
• The visual's page: Treemap Plume. A question: support.