How to create dynamic bookmarks in Copilot in Power BI

João Barros 23 de August de 2026 5 min read

This tutorial shows how to create dynamic bookmarks in Copilot in Power BI to allow users to navigate reports by prompts or questions. It’s useful for building interactive experiences where Copilot activates specific views without complex code, ideal for executive dashboards, customer support panels, or guided presentations in meetings. The practical advantage is reducing time spent searching for information: instead of filtering manually, the user asks Copilot and reaches the correct view in seconds.

Prerequisites

Account with access to Copilot in Power BI and permissions to edit reports. Confirm that your tenant license supports Copilot (for example, the appropriate subscriptions in the Power BI Service).
Power BI report with at least two pages and some visuals configured. It’s recommended to start with 3–5 pages to test navigation.
Basic knowledge of Power BI Desktop or Power BI Service. If you’re new, allow 10–30 minutes to follow this step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Plan the views you want to turn into bookmarks

Choose which pages or filters will make sense as predefined views for the user (e.g., 'Executive summary', 'Detail by region', 'Recent anomalies'). Practical suggestion: limit yourself to 5–8 initial bookmarks — too many bookmarks make maintenance harder and increase the chance of ambiguities in Copilot instructions. Note the states of filters, selections, sorting and the time range (e.g., last month, current quarter). This planning avoids creating unnecessary bookmarks and helps document the exact names you will use in prompts.

Step 2: Create bookmarks in Power BI Desktop

Open the report in Power BI Desktop. For each planned view, apply the desired filters and selections. Then open the Bookmarks pane and create a new bookmark with a descriptive name — use short prefixes, for example 'BM_Resumo', 'BM_Regiao_Norte', 'BM_Anomalias'. Maintain consistency: separators like '_' are preferable to spaces because they reduce errors when Copilot interprets the names.

Ver passos no Power BI Desktop:
1. View > Bookmarks Pane
2. Configurar filtros/seleções na página
3. Add > renomear (ex.: BM_Resumo)
4. Options: marca 'Data', 'Display', e 'Current page' consoante necessidade

Step 3: Mark bookmarks as dynamic (sync with selections)

For the bookmark to reflect current selections, enable the appropriate options: in each bookmark choose to include 'Data' and 'Display'. If you want the bookmark to also change the active page, enable 'Current page'. Explanation: 'Data' ensures that visual filters and selections are saved; 'Display' captures object visibility; 'Current page' navigates to the saved page when the bookmark is applied. Test each bookmark immediately: apply it and confirm that the exact saved state reappears. If you use bookmarks for drillthrough, ensure Drillthrough links remain valid.

Step 4: Publish the report to the Power BI Service

After creating and testing bookmarks locally, publish the report to the Power BI Service so that Copilot can access the bookmarks and navigate between them. Practical note: after publishing, wait 1–2 minutes for the service to propagate the settings; in environments with thousands of reports the update may take longer. Check the report in the Service to confirm that the bookmarks appear in the Bookmarks pane of the published report.

Step 5: Create prompts in Copilot to trigger bookmarks

In the Power BI Service, open Copilot (in the report experience). Write clear prompts that indicate which bookmark you want to trigger. Use natural language and include the exact bookmark name for better accuracy. Examples: direct requests, commands with temporal context or instructions with a specific target. Keep sentences short and specific to reduce ambiguity.

Exemplos de prompts para Copilot:
"Vai para o bookmark 'BM_Resumo' e mostra as principais métricas do último mês." 
"Abre 'BM_Regiao_Norte' concentrando-te na região Norte e filtra para vendas acima de 10k." 
"Mostra a vista 'BM_Anomalias' e explica as três maiores variações comparando com o trimestre anterior."

Step 6: Map Copilot actions to bookmarks with guided questions

If you want to create a guided experience, add questions in Copilot that instruct the user to choose an option. For example, ask the user to choose between 'Summary', 'Region' or 'Anomalies' and then ask Copilot to open the corresponding bookmark. Implement flows with 2–3 simple questions: choose the view, confirm the period, apply additional filters. Test different phrasings (e.g., 'show' vs 'open') to identify which verb Copilot interprets best in your environment.

Verify the result

Confirm that each prompt opens exactly the desired view: 1) issue a prompt with the bookmark name; 2) verify that the page, filters and selections changed; 3) test at least 5 language variations and 3 user profiles (e.g., analyst, manager, executive) to identify discrepancies. If something fails, check the bookmark options (Data, Display, Current page), confirm the published report is up to date and validate that bookmark names do not contain strange characters. Practical rule: keep names short (<30 characters) and avoid diacritics or uncommon symbols.

Conclusion

With dynamic bookmarks and well-crafted prompts, Copilot in Power BI can guide users to specific views without scripts. Next steps: create a library of standard prompts for your team, document bookmark names and experiment with conditional bookmarks using Drillthrough. Final tip: run tests with 5–10 users for a week and collect feedback; generally, small iterations (5–15 minutes each) greatly improve Copilot response accuracy.