topic Re: Timeline Slicer Usability in Custom Visuals Development Discussion

Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 13:55:23 GMT

The Timeline Slicer custom visual works quite well. However it is currently pretty much unusable due to its massive space requirements. At the moment one third of the vertical space on my report is taken up with the Timeline Slicer.

I don't know if anyone from the MS custom visuals team is here, but you need to run it past a usability expert. I am unable to leave a review in the store, so here is my feedback.

The problems are:

The whitespace around the time periods means too much vertical space is used.
Stacking the time periods on top of each other is again very wasteful. A more intelligent layout is required, maybe putting month, quarter and year on the same line for example.
You are unable to reduce the font size below 8pt, which would be useful for certain elements.
The vertical and horizontal space taken up by the coloured timeline is too much.
It should be possible to configure the lowest level of the time heirarchy, ie to prevent drilling down to days.
It should be possible to configure the fiscal calendar to start on a shifting event, for example the second Monday in April.
It should be possible to toggle between regular and fiscal calendar whilst using the Timeline Slicer.

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:14:51 GMT

Thank you for the feedback.

We'll consider all of points in upcoming versions.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 09:07:38 GMT

Thank you @v-viig,

I'd be really keen to learn of any progress with this.

Chris

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 06:58:46 GMT

All of requested improvements are in our backlog.

We'll update this topic once we finish some of improvements.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 09:04:16 GMT

Great to hear

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

cnschulz — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:34:15 GMT

Cant wait!

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

RLilj33 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 20:59:08 GMT

+1 on getting the amount of page real estate used improved for this extremely useful slicer.

Some ideas:

Move the Range Header up to top of the visualization (aligned with the top of the slider)
Display the Y/Q/M/W indicators on the horizontal plane instead of vertical
Allow for a static size of cells
1. Even better, allow the developer to set the cell size
Allow customization of the slider Granularity level
1. Instead of forcing Y/Q/M/W/D, allow developers to select which of these values to allow on the slider
Allow for custom date range entry
1. Ideally, allow a user to click on the first and/or last date and enter a custom value

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 07:24:03 GMT

Thanks for ideas guys. We'll consider all of them.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 09:34:57 GMT

@v-viig Can I ask why this is showing as solved? Just saying "Yeh, we'll look at that at some unknown time in the future" is not a solution.

Chris

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 06:31:12 GMT

Not really sure.

I suggest to create another topic in ideas to track its status.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:28:14 GMT

@v-viigThanks, but there are already ideas around the timeline slicer, and I don't want to fragment the votes. Can't this post just be marked an unsolved?

Anyway, the Power BI team don't seem that active on the ideas section, as there is no attempt to consolidate very similar ideas, popular and long-running ideas often get no feedback from Power BI team members, and sometimes items are marked as completed when the features released do not meet the initial idea.

Sorry if this sounds like a moan, but I just feel that in its current state the ideas pages often leave me feeling frustrated.

Cheers,

Chris

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 06:51:04 GMT

As far as I know, there's no way to unresolve the item. Our suggestion is to open a new idea.

We monitor ideas but we have limitted resources to implement all of them.

If idea was implemented in another way I suggest to comment the idea or open a new one.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:25:12 GMT

Do we have any PBI timeline visuals with hour and minutes level? All the timeline slicer are all up to day and above level so far.

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-viig — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 10:19:30 GMT

Not sure if have any. Please look for such a visual in AppSource.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

AndreVar67 — Thu, 02 May 2019 07:43:51 GMT

Hello @v-viig .

May I ask you when we could have a new Timeline version with - at least - a reduction of taken space ?

Thanks

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-evelk — Mon, 13 May 2019 13:53:00 GMT

Hello,

We are going to release a new version of Timeline with this feature on the beginning of June 2019.

Kind Regards,

Evgenii Elkin,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals
pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

RLilj33 — Mon, 13 May 2019 13:54:50 GMT

That is great news! Looking forward to seeing the new changes.

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

Chris99 — Mon, 13 May 2019 14:51:04 GMT

Great news @v-evelk . Looking forward to seeing how many of my original points have been addressed.

Chris

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

msirasky — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 14:05:34 GMT

Any update on the Size of this slicer. Seems to work really well, but is still enormous. Thanks.

Re: Timeline Slicer Usability

v-evelk — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 13:39:04 GMT

Hello,

No updates for a while.

Kind Regards,

Evgenii Elkin,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals
pbicvsupport@microsoft.com