Alfanumeric input box

[acg85]

Hello,

We have a requirement where we need to give to the user the option to type a 14 digit alfanumeric code, ex: A1B2C3D4E5F6G7, and this input will be later used in a measure or something like that.

We are aware that there is a workaround to do certain types of inputs (link below), but it is not feasable to load into a table all the combinations of 14 digit codes.

https://www.antaresanalytics.net/post/2018/09/11/power-bi-creating-user-input-variables

Is this possible?

Thanks.

[danextian · Accepted solution]

Hi @acg85 

Using an input that  is not in the model requires  writeback which Power BI doesn't natively supported. There is a new text slicer which allows a free text input but will not filter to something that is not in the data yet so using a measure like SELECTEDVALUE(data[column]) will return blank if the input doesn't exist.

Going back to writeback, there are alternatives.

• You can use PowerApps which will store the users input somewhere. Once  an input is submitted, you can use a PowerAutomate flow to trigger the refresh of the semantic model which will of course take time depending on the size of the model among other factors. Note: PowerAutomate is counted against  the daily scheduled refresh limit. Or you can store the result to dataverse which Power BI can connect to using direct query. Note: dataverse is a premium connector.
• Third-party writeback services like from Inforiver

Fabric will be supporting writeback soon. Fabric, that is.

Another alternative which isn't very intuitive is to use 14 different slicers from 14 different tables. The selected values of which will be concatenated to filter the fact or other dimension tables.