Reference labels on New Card Visual autoformat numbers (column type: Text) - no way to change it?!

[phelms2]

have a New Card Visual where I need to provide a year for reference. Since some of the years are with text (i.e. FY2025), the column has "Text" as datatype.

Now, when I insert the year in a reference label, it autoformats to "2K" with no way to change it, since the column type is "Text". 

The solution for me was to enter Power Query, change the format of the column to "Whole number", Close and Save (with errors). Then I was able to change the format from "automatic" to "none". Then I opened Power Query again and changed the format back to "Text" and closed and saved to Power BI (now with no errors). Then the format was changed.

So the conclusion is, that if you are working on an Import model, you will be able to implement this hack, but you are kind of stuck if you are working on an AAS or Live model.

[Anonymous]

Hi @phelms2,

Thanks @vojtechsima for Addressing the issue.

Please mark super user response as a solution for visibility and to help others, but hopefully the product team takes note and improves this behavior in future updates.

I suggest submitting your detailed feedback and ideas through Microsoft's official feedback channels, such as Microsoft Fabric Ideas. Feedback submitted through these channels is frequently reviewed by the product teams and can contribute to meaningful improvements.
https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/search-ideas/ 

Regards,

Vinay Pabbu

[Anonymous]

Hi @phelms2,

As we haven't heard back from you, we are closing this thread. If you have any further issues, please start a new thread in the community forum, and we will be ready to assist you. Thank you for being part of the Microsoft Fabric Community.

Regards,

Vinay Pabbu

[phelms2]

Great hack for those Live/AAS models 🙂 - It is still a workaround, though, as the reference label should not interpret the text as a value and autoformat the value - it should just display the default "text".

Again, good solution from you, but I am not sure wether or not to mark it as a solution since it is still a flaw in the programming? 

[vojtechsima]

@phelms2 I am sure in couple of days (if you keep it without Solution), someone from Microsoft will check it out and give us proper solution or comment.

[vojtechsima]

Hi, @phelms2 

very interesting issue you found.

Here's fix I came up with.

Create a measure instead of directly using the column, the column needs to be TEXT (set in Power Query), in the measure add invisible character like this (I cannot copy the code, because it's invisible in this editor) 

Copy the character from here:
https://www.editpad.org/tool/invisible-character

then use it as the label and it's gonna work: