Share your thoughts on the new On-Object Interaction feature (preview)

[RosieL]

Hit Reply to tell us what you think about the new On-Object Interaction feature so we can continue to improve.

For example:

• What changes would you like to see?
• If you turned off the preview switch, why?
• Any suggestions for addititional settings or capabilities?

Thanks,

-Power BI team

To read more about the feature, see the announcement in the Power BI Product Blog or our documentation on how to Use on-object interaction

FAQs:

• Q: How can I open multiple panes at once?
  • A: You can CTRL + click or right click on the unselected pane you wish to open and choose "Open in new pane"
• Q: Where did aggregations move to?
  • A: It's still on right click of a field, or you can use the new flyout aggregations dropdown while choosing or swapping a field.
• Q: Where did drillthrough and tooltip page setup move to?
  • A: Drillthrough is now in the page settings of the format pane under Page Information > Page type > Drillthrough or Tooltip.

[F_Fitti]

I have just turned off the preview feature. I seem to have either found a bug/loss of functionality, or you guys changed how I access it in a way that I can't figure it out.

Example: I have a simple multi-row card visual. I have a variable in my report which is some type of record ID. When I add it to the multi-row card, by default it goes into the visual as "don't summarize". In my case, I want it to be a simple "count", so all I had to to in the old interface is click that variable after I place it in the field well and the many differnt summarization options are available. See sample screenshot for reference.

After turning on this preview, I could not find a way to change the non-summarized variable into a count, no matter what I did. It goes into the multi-row card in the default "don't summarize" behavior, and clicking it within the field well of the on-object builder only brings up the data panel/queries so that I can replace with some other variable from my datasets, but it no longer brings the same menu of that screenshot where I can change the summarization option from "don't summarize" to "count".  How do I do that?

Up until now, I was kind of happy with the preview. As a general principle, I like when software has default behaviors for most frequent taken actions/choices, but I also don't like it when those default actions/choices come at the expense of easy access to full functionality - this feels a bit like how Apple does things i.e. "do it the Apple way or no way".  I think my example is a good one. If the idea is to streamline content building and formatting on each object, I would expect an easy "right click access to get to full menu" option that would allow me to do everything that I could always do in the past interface. I don't understand why the new on-object menu would be a reason to prevent me from being able to choose summarization options with a simple click effort. 

[RosieL]

It's still there on right click 🙂 just no longer have an icon representing the entry point:

We've been hearing this feedback a lot, that without the icon it's hard to know aggregations is still there. We are updating the flyout menu to also have an aggregations dropdown coming in the May release so it'll be more discoverable. 

[kahnailee]

Not to nitpick, but how is that not called out anywhere within the release notes or feature summary?! 

[F_Fitti]

THANK YOU! Yes, it seems the big "X" to remove data from the field well and the arrow pointing to right act as uncounscious driver of where we click in search of right click menu. I swear I had tried to click it several times before and never managed to hit the right spot. As it is, back again to preview to continue acquainting with it. Appreciate you taking the time to reply and glad to hear I was not the only one lost! Looking forward to seeing how you guys revamp the discoverability of functionality that got tucked away from view!

[jeremyyoungs]

I like the new option, but I absolutely do not like the fact that when it's turned on it removes the format bar entirely that previously existed to the right. Please allow an option to turn on both options or remove the format section.

[EmanuelTavares]

Good afternoon.

I have started to test the new look and feel for visualizations, and I'm coming back for the previous one.

To be in two examples, I tried to put the same field twice in the same visualization, and it didn't allow me. I did it to change the second one to a COUNT. The workaround was to turn the first on COUNT before putting the field again.

The list of fields can't be expanded, so this is the result:

It is impossible to use.

[fat_cat]

I turned off On-Object interaction. I think it has a lot of potential, but it still needs some optimization, and first of all - this functionality should not be a replacement of the old one - I would love it much more if it would be added on-top of the current functionalities.

In my case the main reason that forced me to turn off On-Object interaction was not being able to work with old panes functionality, where I could have in example Data pane, Bookmark pane and Object Selection pane visible at the same time, side-by-side. Right now when I select one pane, the other one is being automatically hidden, which drives me nuts, because more often than not I want to work with more than one pane visible (in example when you try to update multiple bookmarks, constant switching between panes is really a bad experience).

[RosieL]

You can still open them side by side using the right click menu:

[fat_cat]

Thanks, it works. I was looking for this, but somehow I missed it.

One remark I stil have is that, if you already work with several open panes (for example Bookmarks, Format, and  Data) and you want to add/activate another pane from the top menu  -  all previously opened panes are being collapsed (you can't avoid it, there is no this right click functionality in the top menu). May not seem a big thing, but not very comfortable and quite annoying in a long run.

[Vucko]

What I like:

• I like the in-visual editing - eg. the titles

  What I don't like:

  • It is now much more complicated to create bookmarks when you want to hide/unhide certain visuals. Previously I had the Selection and Bookmarks pane side by side so I could easily see which visuals get hidden/unhidden by clicking on certain bookmarks and I could also easily change this. Now I have to switch between Selection and Bookmark panes as they are stacked and it is not easily visible and maintainable which visuals are hidden.
  • EDIT: I have missed it but it is possible to have the panes opened side by side like before - if you right click on the pane, there is a option to "Open in a new pane" and this will open the pane side by side.
  • Build a visual pane should also be enabled to be viewable separately in the right pane, not only at the visual. The problem I have with this pane in this preview feature is that if I have a longer field/measure name, I can't expand this Build a visual pane and it is very complicated to easily see what fields I use. Reorganizing the fields/measures is also more complicated and I have to be more precise when dragging the fields.
  • It is not easily visible how to add new visual, it's very counter-intuitive, almost to the point that it might look there are no visuals at all. Adding more visuals from market place etc. also takes much more time/clicks.
  • In general this new preview feature lowers my productivity and for most things to be done, I have to click more and look for the features more as they are not readily available at hand. I would appreciate to have the possibility of keeping the in-visual editing (like the titles) and choosing between the stacked panes on the right panel or expanding / popping up selected panes so they become visible side by side like before.

    I have used the preview feature for about a week and I will be turning it off until some of the points from my and other user's feedback are addressed.

[Prashant_1794]

i am unable to find Drill Through facility in these new changes, please help

[RosieL]

Details are found in the blog post

[RyanReynoldsKHC]

The official Power BI documentation still doesn't reflect this, which has caused a lot of confusion for users. Can you please get this updated?

[Lachlan_Duncan]

Unfortunatly, unlike most Power BI enhancements I found this feature regressive and counterintuitve. 

Even though I work with Power BI continually, it still doesn't make sense that I have to have click multiple times to load the format panel when wanting to change the format of a pre-existing table.

Almost at every point, extra clicks are needed  to get a result.  For example when creating a graph, the data panel needs to be loaded to add fields to the graph. Often I will have a table expanded in the data panel and when creating a table or graph it is a simple matter of a very short drag and drop.  Now it is either a much longer drag or multiple clicks to get the same result.

I can understand that some may love this feature.  All I ask is that if it makes it past public preview that there is an  option to show the classic view 

[Anonymous]

1. The On-Object icons pops on top of formula bar while typing in DAX formulas when any visual is selected and the formaula bar is open.

2. The arrow present in the Data, Format, Bookmark, Selection and Sync slicer panes could possibly used to collapse (by default) that pane instead of showing two options in dropdown to "collapse" and "close", since we already have a "X" to close the pane.

[danyhoter]

I'm getting used to the new experience and I can see it's advantages especially to new users.

The problem is with long time users who are used to do things in a certain way and for them the change is hurting productivity.

I remember the negative responses for the ribbon in Office and the decision not to allow a "classic" option.

Similarly I don't see any intention by the team to allow users to stay with the old behavior for the long run beyond preview.

Allowing the existing pane to stay alongside the new on-object can be a reasonable compromise. 

[ManuTaikō]

What changes would you like to see?

-Less emphasis on building the visuals with the on-object feature, use it as enhancement of the visuals pane rather than replacement

• Instead focusing on editing things that are frequently changed like colours and text
  • Double clicking the visuals to edit specific areas is fantastic

- My struggle at the moment is creating new visuals, through the navigation and scrolling needed to achieve what used to be a drag and drop even with only a couple of small tables.

• On the add visual right click I'd like to see the visual options autoexpanded and the data wells back in the format pane to be continued to be used with the data pane
• Clicking on a data well and clicking to add attribute would be great to have with the visual and data panes
  
  • The amount of clicks for this bit specifically is the biggest contributor to my increased development time
    

Someone below suggested a pin button for things like the data panel - I'd like to add that keeping some of these settings persistent to the user would be wonderful for quality of life.

If you turned off the preview switch, why?

My primary pain point is that it doesn't feel intuitive. The amount of movement around the screen is making me feel very lost - If I wasn't aware of how Power BI worked or what I am able to do I would have switched it off much earlier.

Any suggestions for addititional settings or capabilities?

Ultimately, if the goal is to support new users then it would be good to do some kind of guided tour that users can then reference back to. Currently the help tab sends you off to the Microsoft learning site which is great for people who have time to invest, but it's easy to get lost if someone just wants to figure out how to add data to a visual.

Rather than emulating everyday office products, I'd much prefer the report area took cues from visual design software (which it already does it just needs a degree of refinement).

[MattAbey]

Kudos to the PBI team for adding the on-object interactions capability.  In therory, it sounds awesome, but I feel the current preview version isn't quite optimized yet.  For example, a simple change to the order of fields in a table now requires multiple clicks whereas the old panel enabled you to do that with a simple click and drag immediately.  I'd like to see on-object cosmetic changes being enabled with the new approach whilst maintaining the faster access provided by the old 'Visualizations' pane for 'structural' changes.  Changing the visualization is another example that requires multiple clicks when the previous version was quicker and easier (in my view).  Thanks!

[RHOU]

I feel exactly the same after giving it a second try again (I initially turned if off again because it required too many clicks to add fields or view which fields are active, but then wanted to try it once again)

• Leave the selection of visuals and fields and things like configuring conditional formatting of measures, etc. in a separate visual pane as an ADDITIONAL option to the on-object interaction. There are many use cases where the pane is superior. 
• But definitely continue with making formatting directly on the visual/object very smooth/intuitive. The current formatting pane is very difficult to learn due to the number of options that can be selected for a visual (which are all needed and good). Allowing users to for instance right click on an element of the visual and then select options that affect exactly that element makes formatting much more intuitive. (similar to Excel charts)

[danyhoter]

I don't like the new experience and I want to revert back to the classic way.

I don't see an easy way to do that except disabling the preview feature

[gveg]

It would be great if you allowed color codes to be used in all sorts of strings in PBI. That would allow a lot of creativity in building great titles. For example I'd like to have part of the title in blue, part in red, something like this:     myTitle = "#0033FF" & "Blue text   " &  "#FF0000" & "Red text"