Better support for SSAS MD formatting

A related need is when you have a Currency dimension and each cell in a query can be a different format string if you put that currency dimension on rows. PBI Desktop actually already retrieves the format string for each cell but doesn't use it for formatting currently. Please complete this work.

We would like to %'s flow through from the cube. in SSAS 86% shows up as .86 in PBI Desktop and Service.

This has to be given high priority. As all our users use %'s everywhere and it is annoying to see % as decimal.

This is a must have! This has to be fixed, otherwise a lot of the work that is put into creating SSAS MD and Tabular is somewhat lost.

The weird thing is, some formats do come through, but others don't. Depends if they are calculated measures, if there are scoped assignments and so on.

We have a big issue with SSAS MD measures and calculated measures that are not formated when retrieved with a live Connection. Some decimal numbers can show up to ten decimals and this rally looks bad in Power BI Desktop reports.

Koen, thanks for the comment about scope. I had the same problem but when I moved my scope statements up right after the CALCULATE keyword and before the first calculated member all my formats where correct again. This trick might not work if you need to reference a calculated member in your SCOPE statement. So I hope MS will support SSAS formats better really soon.

Through some research I found out that you can make a created member work for percent but there isn't much leeway you are stuck with 00.00%. Here is an example of what works: CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[Measures].[Gross Margin Percent] AS DIVIDE([Measures].[Gross Margin],[Measures].[Net Sales]), VISIBLE = 1, ASSOCIATED_MEASURE_GROUP = 'Measures' , FORMAT_STRING="Percent";

I'm curious how this issue isn't affecting more people (based on the number of votes)? Is it that not many customers are using SSAS MD with this tool or are they not using live connections? Or is there some trick a few of us are missing to make the passthrough formatting work?

This is a must have. How can we explain to our end-users 0.2 means 20%, 2 means 200% etc. It clearly impacts the user adoption.