Forum Discussion
Rename column headers in a table
If you don't want to rename your measures, or create new ones with the proper names, as in
[Employee Profit] = [Profit]
you could create an image with the titles you want and place it above the table.
I do not want to rename columns or measures.
However can I make part of the header change dynamically... with a parameter ..etc?
For example I want to include Year info in the column header(this will change every week)
Profit 2016 (for Current Year)
Profit 2015 (for Last year)
Profit Week 10 Year 2016
Profit Week 10 Year 2015
It wouldn't be possible to create an image etc.. as even this would change.
how did you go with this? Did you get it to work?
I managed to get dynamic columns names using this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34858733/dynamically-rename-a-set-of-columns-using-power-query
But unfortunately when you add it to the report, once the column name changes the report breaks because it's expecting the previous column name :(
FYI for those still looking for a solution to this - you can rename the headers by double clicking on the name of the measure under 'Values', which will allow you to edit the name
Yes, this was a feature inclusion that came after this particular thread.
Dynamically updating column names based on a mapping table could be super useful if only the output worked not just with flat Excel tables, but also with Power BI reports and Excel pivot tables!
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem so. Strangely enough, this limitation/bug reported in 2015 still seems to be the 'state-of-the-art':
"When you rename a column in the Query Editor of Power BI.., it implicitly triggers the column references in your reports to be updated. However, when you rename columns through some dynamic logic, this mechanism isn't triggered and the column references in reports are broken. ... this looks like a bug - you should send a frown..." [2015]
"When I rename columns it breaks the tables I have made. It says all of the columns in the table are invalid and I have to redrag the newly named columns to get it to work again. Is there a way to get around this?" [2018]
Does anyone know a good workaround to keep column references in the visuals after applying such a bulk rename step to the query?
