Forum Discussion
Timeline Slicer is missing data
We have issue with the Timeline Slicer only accepting a single Date field "Time". Because all of the time base data we work with (events, calendar data, appointments, etc) contain a start/end or start and duration.
This makes the timeline slicer suffer because it can miss data when it is filtering. For instance, we chose start date for the Time field, the Timeline slicer will correctly include events where the start date falls within the slicer range, but leave out events where the start happens before the slicer range and the end falls after the slicer start. This can be mis leading to the user, because they expect an overlapping event like this to be included. So user confidence is lost on the Timeline Slicer.
Is there a hidden feature that will allow the Timeline Slicer filter based on a start and end? This would make the visual a very powerful report filter.
Suggestion 1:
The developers can attain this functionality and be backwards compatible by adding an optional end time field and when a data field is included, add the logic to detect where events with start/end overlap the timeslicer start end. This answer to this post shows how simple overlapping period detection is.
Suggestion 2:
Is the Timeline Visual open source? We would gladly try and make this change if so.
Workaround attempted:
We tried to use two slicers on our reports (one to take the start and one to take the end) - but these when they are not automatically synched is too cumbersome on the user. Also the visual is too large and having 2 on the report takes too much report real estate. So the work around was abandoned
Is there something I am missing to get the slicer to detect date range overlaps?
Thanks.
9 Replies
- v-viigCommunity Champion
Could you please prepare a sample report with fake data to deep dive into requirements?
Source code of Timeline Slicer is open sourced on GitHub.
Are you able to use page level filters instead of Timeline slicer as a workaround?
Ignat Vilesov,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals
- thomastatumFrequent Visitor
Hi Ignat,
I developed a sample report with the problem I would like to be solved using Dec 2017 release of Power BI Desktop.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Alt3fmh2vBRllKM0ShCf7ZCrqJ06GQ
If the slicer worked with date range overlap detection, this would be a useful feature. In the meantime, I will look at the GitHub code to determine if I can add this change.
I was not successful getting a Page Level filter to work like you suggested. If you could explain in more detail how to do this, I will try your suggestion.
Thanks.
Thanks.
- v-viigCommunity Champion
Just to make sure. Are you facing the issue with native Slicer visual or Timeline Slicer?
I have some doubts since the sample report contains native slicer visual.
Ignat Vilesov,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals