Is it possible to dynamically change the column name in a visual element?

[aignn]

Hi all!

is it possible to dynamically change the column name in a visual element?

I have query from SQL. A column is also added to this query using power query. Which will be named differently each month (Completed 17.02.20, Completed 17.03.20 etc)

And i have visual element Table which has this column. 

How can I make the column name also change dynamically? Now if the query changes the name of a column, I get an error in the visual element, because such a column was not found.

Thank you advanced

[danextian]

Hi @aignn ,

I can think of using a Matrix and unpivot and other tricks in Power Query to get your desired result but not using a table. In the Query Editor:

• Start by navigating to your data source
• If Power BI automatically detects the data types, remove that step. You don't want any step that references a column just yet.
• Select the columns that will be constant in your data. Right click then hit Unpivoted Other Columns which will generate Attribute and Value columns by default. Apply changes.
• In the designer, select the matrix visual and put the Attribute column to Columns. 

In this approach, the Attribute column will be a constant in your data model (unless renamed). What will appear in the Columns of the matrix visual is the name of the column that changes name.

•  

[v-yuta-msft · Accepted solution]

@aignn ,

I'm afraid this could not be achieved, you need to modify the column headers manually in power query, please refer to doc below:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rename-a-column-power-query-d72034d0-f271-4b62-bb57-1cce49d...

Community Support Team _ Jimmy Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Pragati11]

Hi @aignn ,

Power Bi will always give an error in the cases where the column names differ - like in your case you are writing SQL Query to extract data for this month with a COLUMN_A, next month you use same query but with COLUMN_B. You need to keep column name same in your query. I have found the following article which may help you to resolve the dynamic column name issue:

https://www.goodly.co.in/dynamic-column-names-power-query/

Let me know if that works.

Thanks,

Pragati

[JirkaZ]

@aignn I guess you cannot dynamically change the column names in the visual. What you could do is to put a card visual over the column name and populate the value of the card with a measure value resulting in the wanted text.