New Card - Reference Label trend images not working

[ianpro]

For the life of me, I can't get the automatic trend icons/indicators (up/down arrows) to show on a new card visual for the reference labels. Ever since the November 2023 update announcment (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-cards-reference-labels-public-preview/) that shows these, they simply don't work for me.  How do you make the trend icons appear? I have detail data with a previous year comparison percentage and there aren't any specific formatting options I can find to make these appear. 

Any guidance? Do these work for anyone?

Cheers,

- Ian

[ianpro]

Thanks Owen, I'll give that a try. But I am surprised, given how MS has touted the ability to extensively format the reference labels and details, that it's not easier than that - they make no mention in their blog of custom format strings. Adam Sexton, in a Guy In a Cube video about the new card, uses the rference label and the trend icon just appears automatically as he builds the visual (jump to about 5:40 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPrh4sK8CX4 ). 

Is anyone else noticing whether or not these trend icons appear automatically in the new card? Maybe it's only when the increase or decrease amount is over a certain percentage?

[OwenAuger · Accepted solution]

You're welcome Ian  🙂

That's a fair point: the new feature announcements often show the end result without showing what's going on under the hood.

In the Guy in a Cube video, I'm assuming that the % Change measure was pre-defined either with an appropriate format string or as as a text measure containing the trend arrow.

A couple of other videos I found that demonstrate text measures containing the arrow character (timestamps in links):

https://youtu.be/Moxktpv4z7E?t=741

https://youtu.be/KzGmpyHl-K4?t=742

One thing I would note is that the format string can be set directly in the visual's format pane:

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-card-visual-public-preview/#post-23929-Formatting

I could be missing something though. I just asked a question over here and will see what the response is:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/updates-enhancements-reference-labels-pbicorevisuals-3pi9e

[ianpro]

Thanks again Owen, especially for the cross-post on LinkedIn. I've added that to my saved pages and following that group now too...a great resource.

[OwenAuger]

Hi @ianpro 

The trend arrows are not created using any built-in feature of the new card visual itself.

I believe they would have been created using appropriate format strings for the percentage change measures that are used as "Detail" fields.

Here is an example of such a format string you could use for the percentage change:

+#,0%" 🡹";-#,0%" 🡻";0%

Here's an article discussing this topic:

https://www.sqlbi.com/articles/improving-data-labels-with-format-strings/

You could also create text measures using the FORMAT function, but I would personally prefer using format strings for numerical measures.

Regards