Don't see the "Analyze - Explain the decrease" option after September update

[Anonymous]

Hello friends,

In September's update there supposed to be a nice feature of explaining decrease/increase.

It is described here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=817&v=moTQJlnClJw

The problem is that I don't see this option when right clicking a chart column.

I did use a date column from a time dimension and a stacked column chart as described.

But no "Analyze" option....

Please help.

Thank you

Michael

[sokg]

So, if we want this feature work, we must have some conditions (in our tables, measures, columns). Can someone from Power Bi team tell us which are these conditions???

[Anonymous]

I concur that if someone from the team came back with what conditions this requires. After exploring further it is not alway clear what works and what doesn't and why.

One aspect that I have noticed that isn't the most useful is if I use a seperate 'Date' table to do the analysis then all the ML graphs come back using insights from what is happening on the 'Date' table, rather than the Fact table. If I use the date directly from the Fact table then I actually get useful insights. Normally I would prefer to hide all dates in my Fact tables and use Date Tables as a dimension. 

A blog from the BI team about the nitty gritty of this feature would be excellent, especially if it explained in what conditions this feature will not work effectively.

[tannera]

This feature is not available if your data source is a SSAS I believe. Please confirm this to us PBI team. 

[KHorseman]

Hooray, more features that look cool in demos but don't do anything for us! I was hoping this update would be full of those again.

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

The "Analyze - Explain the decrease" option is available in my test.

But, if there is only one column bar in chart, this option will disappear.

Could you share your sample data or pbix file so that I can test in my environment?

Regards,
Yuliana Gu

[Anonymous]

@v-yulgu-msft

Hi Yuliana,

It seems to work only with simple measures such as SUM(Column).

If I try the simple Average() or some other calculated measure - there is no option to Analyze.

Also if I connect to SSAS - it doesn't appear even for simple Sum() measures.

Please specify for all of us - when this usefull feature is usable.

Thank you!

Michael

[sokg]

@v-yulgu-msft

Please tell me , in your test, "Sales" is a measure or just a column in a table????

[Anonymous]

It is a column in my data with values that PBI sumed.

However, when tested using a measure using Sum it also works.

[Anonymous]

What helped me is stripping back my data model to just a few tables to see how this feature works before moving back to my full model (and realising that I need to change a lot of my existing models if I wish to use this feature)

[Anonymous]

I have been experimenting a touch with trying to get this to work, and have finally managed to find the feature and understand under what circumstances it appears to work.

It appears that it doesn't work on some types of measures.

I had a measure that was 

CALCULATE(COUNTROWS('Table'), 'Table'[BooleanColumn]))

My Boolean column was used to identify if a particular outcome had occurred.

In this style, the Analyze feature did not appear.

However if I change the boolean column to a 'Whole Number' type, so all replaced with 1s and 0s and changed my measure to 

SUM('Table'[NumberVersionOfBooleanColumn])

In this method the Analyze feature DOES appear.

[Anonymous]

In my case I don't even have a calculated measure. I have displayed normal table data values in a bar chart. Nevertheless I cannot see the new functionality. Does anyone have a clue?

thanks and br

[Anonymous]

Same issue for me.

[Anonymous]

Same issue for me as well.

[sokg]

Hello to all,

Same problem here.

Because it is a preview feature I thought to look at options but nothing there too.

 ver2.50.4859.502 64-bit

[lbeneyze]

Good morning,

I have exactly the same issue. I've downloaded and installed Power BI Dekstop x64 Version: 2.50.4859.502 64-bit (September 2017)

I can't wait trying this feature.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

Lohic Beneyzet

[lbeneyze]

Based on the reactions, I've tried several things.

I discover that:

   1. my calculated measure wasn't working. I've stripped it down to a simple "SUM"

   2. I was using a custom date hierarchy using "addcolumns": i've replaced it with a simple date columns.

Then I could use the Analyse button! Yeah!!!

Thanks a lot fellows for the comments

[kimani · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Explain the increase / decrease has a few limitations with the first release, which is why it is still in preview.

You do not need to enable the preview switch as it is turned on for all. Here's a list of the type of queries it does not yet handle:

• TopN filters
• Include/exclude filters
• Measure filters
• Non-additive measures and aggregates
• Show value as
• Categorical columns on X-axis unless it defines a sort by column that is scalar. If using a hierarchy, then every column in the active hierarchy has to match this condition
• Non-numeric measures: model measure support is limited to sum and count only right now.
• Limitation in data conectivity
  • Direct query
  • Live connect
  • On-prem RS
  • Embedding

Keep an eye out for future releases with improvements.

[leylarm]

Hello,

I was looking for the answer, why Analyze button doesn't work, when you 're embedding the chart on links.

Have you fixed it?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for clarifying this - that's really helpful! It would have been helpful of the Power BI team to make this explicit in the release notes, rather than forcing many of us to take ot the forums to find out why the new feature isn't working.

That list is fairly comprehensive. Personally I would have preferred that they wait a couple of months and release something properly, than ship something that doesn't work in 80% of use cases.

[lbeneyze]

Hi,

Thanks indeed for the clarification. This is a huge help in order to "test" this feature. Like @Anonymous is writing, it would be have been more friendly if the conditions to have it work have been explained instead of discovering on our own. 

Unlike @Anonymous, I'm very very happy you have released this feature. It gives us the possiblity to test it and to influence the course of your development. Based on the past 2 years, Power BI dev team has shown to be truely "agile" and will improve this feature the coming months. I'm sure of that. Keep up the good job!

Kind regards,

Lohic Beneyzet

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.d go on failing fast!" (Samuel Beckett)