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.

[Thulasiraman]

Hi

The May 2023 update of formatting the matrix by right clicking now working for certain elements like column headers, individual columns.  But it is working for title, entire matrix background.

How to fix it.

Thanks.

Thulasiraman

[EwanT]

Hi Thulasiraman,

Thank you for trying out the preview feature. Some elements like title and background are standard across visuals so you can access on-object formatting for these elements. At the moment the Matrix isn't supported at the level you are looking to format. Please stay tuned for a future release

For now you will need to format in the pane like before. I have heard from some users that finding the Format pane is harder now. Just in case, here are some options to make it appear:

• Double click on a visual
• Right click a visual and select Format
• Select a visual, go to the Add to your visual button on the side of the visual container, and press More options button
• Go to the View tab in the ribbon and select the Format button

[datawailor]

My general comments are that I'd like to have both enabled so I can decide when I want to use the On visual formatting and the format pane as usual. I like new things but this makes it hard to explain to others or even document what is going on if on-visual formatting is the only method to get to this pane. This method seems to introduce too many clicks by having to click More Options virtually all the time.

Also: Is it me but am also noticing that things like title are now under Visual and not under Properties. Not a big deal but would have liked to know this was happening. FYI, when we work on visuals, it helps toknow where things are so we can move fast as formatting tends to be a time bog on most visualization projects.

[EwanT]

Hi datawailor,

Thanks fo the feedback. Please check out this post for some ways to make the format pane appear: Re: Share your thoughts on the new On-Object Inter... - Microsoft Fabric Community

Please stay tuned for our June and July releases. We will be introducing options to set up the panes you would like quick access to as part of the pane switcher and you'll be able to persist these options so they will be available to you when you open Power BI each time.

I'll share your feedback with the team about Title moving unexpectedly and its effect on your productivity

[trevrobwhite]

I've turned off the preview, I didn't like the feature at all, having the drawer allows me to have the Visualation data available on demand and close to the mouse, to add or rename fields required a lot of mouse miles especially on a large monitor, it also lacked many of the functions like reordering fields and many functions where hidden under seperate menus.

The icon would also get stuck when dealing with a large visual.

It would make more sense to allow all the drawers to be undocked, so they can be moved around independantly and then docked again if needed rather than redesign the menu.

[EwanT]

Hi trevrobwhite,

Please stay tuned for our June release. We will be introducing options for you to move the menus closer together.

For reordering there may be two things happening:

1. Suggest a type toggle is on. Since this feature looks at the data added and not the order, reordering is turned off. If you disable this toggle you will be able to reorder.
2. We have a bug right now with a fix on the way. This makes the drop zones so small they are harder to hit. If the toogle is off and you drag a field, it has to be dragged to the small area between the the field or the +Add data button until the fix is in

Could you let me know which functions we less discoverable for you? I'd like to make sure that Power BI has a full list of things that are harder to find so we can address them

Can you let me know in more detail what you mean by, "stuck when dealing with large visual."? I would need this information to look into a fix for this

Please stay tuned for our June and July releases. We will be adding options that will allow you to dock the Build a visual menu on the side and move it back to a visual if you choose

[SteveMS]

1. ***Allow all side panels to be open as new panels at all times***
2. Seperate On-Object as a new feature on it's own, panel and ribbon changes are seperate items
3. Automatically open the build a vis panel when you click a visual
4. Place the build a vis panel so I don't have to scroll, this is a benefit of the side panels
5. Consider extra clicks as very bad when making improvements

In general the combined changes require more clicks, many of which are redundant. Simply adding on-object editing is a great change. However, it's come with data and vis changes that slow us down. For example, I may have a few data tables expanded on the side which I use most frequently. Adding data via on object requires me to re-expand these in each field for each visual which is added clicks vs just dragging and dropping from the data panel. Build a visual also requires scrolling more often if you are working on a visual at the bottom of the view. Other comments are spot on in that having things in consistent locations is easier to keep track of. It's also very Microsoft like to have multiple ways to do things. In Excel you can right click but sometimes it's easier or more advanced to use the side panel. Why can't we have both in PBI? Why does on-object ineration cuase us to lose side panel options? What I really want is to have the data, format, AND visualization panels open all at once. Building new visuals is easier this way. Making edits to existing visuals may be easier with On-Object. Something else that may reduce clicks is to auto open build a visual when you click the visual. Now you have to click the vis, then click again to open the build panel.

[EwanT]

Hi SteveMS,

Thanks for the feedback. We have planned releases to address most of what you are mentioning about the use of the panes. The June release will let you dock the Build a visual menu to the side so you can use drag and drop with less distance. Future releases will be handling the small menu systems at the bottom of the screen making you scroll. This work required more time, so we released to get feedback without it. We plan to give you multiple ways to do things as our releases happen throughout the year

I'll share your feedback with the team. Please check out the June and July releases so you can work using panes with less scrolling as we further develop the project

[Severofm]

The experience has been very bad, the current method is much better and faster. The checkbox could be added as an extra to the current method but never as a replacement.

[EwanT]

Hi Severofm,

Thanks for the feedback.

We will be adding options in our June and July releases that will allow to work more using panes on the side. I'm taking a guess here, but are the checkboxes you are mentioning these ones?

If so, these aren't intended to replace the previous way of working. This is mostly a shortcut to quick visibility options in the visual. If you are a fan of having the Format available each time you come to Power BI, that option should be available as part of the July release.

If my assumptions are wrong, could you let me know? Then we can continue the conversation so I could record your feedback accurately for the team

[iBusinessBI]

Very bad experience. Too many clicks.

Please allow us to keep the current layout that shows fields of a visual as a right-side pane.

We've developed a muscle memory that allows us to drag and drop fields from the model to the visual without extra clicks and without thinking about the location to drop them.

[EwanT]

Hi iBusinessBI,

Thanks for the feedback.

Please stay tuned for our June and July releases. You will be able to move the Build a visual menu to the side and persist the panes you would like to have in the pane switcher each time you come back to Power BI.

If you'll give this another chance then, please let us know if this issue has been solved for you

[BuckyKat37]

I don't care for how this works as it now takes an extra click each time I want to get to the fields used in the visual.

[EwanT]

HI BuckyKat37,

Thanks for the feedback.

Please check out our June and July releases. We will be giving you options to keep the Build a visual menu on the side as a pane. Please let us know if these updates help you with this issue

[trevrobwhite]

If you dock it then you loose the ability to drag and drop fields from the data tab because they are on different tabs.

If you want to add several fields from one table the new layout makes it very hard work.

At least put a pin on the data flyout so it stays there between sections or include a checkbox so you can select multiple fields at once.

Personally, I'm not sure of the goal of this feature, it doesn't seem like time well spent but maybe that's just my opinion.

[LewisCoghlan]

Agreed - not sure of what problem this is solving and believe there are many other features that are far more valuable and useful that could have had time invested into them.

[gordoncurl]

Please do NOT make this a required layout.  I need to be able to see the Selections and Bookmarks and or Selections and Properties at the same time.  I don’t want to have to redo the layout each time I open Power BI.  I’m not a fan.

[abhayrnjn]

This option is not working for me. Whenever I check this option and clicked the OK button, nothing is happening even after I left it for half an hour. Also restarted the PBI desktop but I am unable to find any changes in PBI desktop.

[QC]

I had the same issue, reported bug to MS: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Issues/Serious-BUG-of-PBI-Desktop-May-2023-release/idi-p/3...

Eventually I reinstalled PBI from website download, it is working now. My previous installation was app from Store, maybe that was the issue

[vanessafvg]

I love this new feature but finding it rather painful in certain circumstances

1. if the data view isn't showing and you try to create a measure, it does nothing. it wont open a new measure dialogue box

2. often the on object get stucka nd blocks the view of other objects even if you try to get it to go away.  very annoying.

[crockcw]

I have gotten mostly used to this, but I have a really hard time dragging and dropping fields to get them in the order I want.  It never wants to "grab" the field and the hover pop-up that shows the detail of the field prevents me from seeing where I'm putting the item.  I never had this much of an issue with the previous formatting view.  Having to right click and "move up" individually gets tedious when there are a lof of fields.

I think it would be nice to still see the fields in the formatting side panel so you can select where to edit.  The on object pop up also covers up other items and sometimes I want to see the entire page without obstruction while formatting.  

My main issue is the bugginess of selecting fields though.  If that could be looked at for future updates I would be grateful 😊