topic Re: Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual? in DAX Commands and Tips

Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual?

mbbozzuto — Tue, 07 May 2024 13:40:03 GMT

Hi - I have been testing the new "Visual Calculations" feature for use cases where I need to apply filter conditions on individual measures inside a table. However, it seems to be limited to only fields/columns present in the visual itself and cannot use other fields in the model.

For example, I need to produce a table with the measure [Revenue] and then immediately next to it display [Revenue] filtered for just one department (the unfiltered [Revenue] measure sums revenue from ALL departments). There is no other way to generate this result without creating a second custom measure in the model for [Revenue - Specific Department]; I was hoping to accomplish this with a single measure using visual calculations and applying the filter condition for the one department on the [Revenue] measure as the second column in a visual calculation.

But this does not seem possible because the [Department] field needs to actually be incorporated into the visual for it to be used; this results in a change to the table itself slicing by [Department] which was not the result I need.

Is there any way in visual calculations to use columns not present in the visual? And if not, is that on the roadmap?

Re: Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual?

lbendlin — Wed, 08 May 2024 01:28:32 GMT

Is there any way in visual calculations to use columns not present in the visual? And if not, is that on the roadmap?

No, and no. That's the whole point of the Visual Calculations, to NOT reach back into the data model. The only data source is the visual's DAX query.

Re: Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual?

mbbozzuto — Wed, 08 May 2024 15:48:39 GMT

Got it, thanks for the feedback.

I have been looking for ways to apply filters on individual measures in visuals to modify the output of that one measure (rather than modifying all the measures in a visual as Power BI's "Apply filter to visual" does). Basically, a fourth option for filtering (Filter on visual measure) in addition to the existing 3 (Filter on All Pages, Filter on this Page, Filter on this Visual).

The alternative is to add the specialized measure back into the source semantic model; or at a minimum, add the measure in the report-only that is while connected to the semantic model.

Re: Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual?

lbendlin — Wed, 08 May 2024 17:29:15 GMT

If this is important to you please consider voting for an existing idea or raising a new one at https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/?forum=2d80fd4a-16cb-4189-896b-e0dac5e08b41

Re: Visual calculations only uses fields in the visual?

mbbozzuto — Wed, 08 May 2024 19:21:49 GMT

Good suggestion. Idea was already recently submitted - please vote if you think this is a good idea as well.

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=5d932695-36ec-ee11-a747-00224850a62f