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.

[Anonymous]

We renamed a number of measures. I want to update the visuals with the new fields, but nothing shows in the visualization pane. On some I can click the fix button, but this just deleted the fields. I need to still see the incorrect measures, so that I can see their name/order prior to replacement.

Performance is very inconsistent. Gettin a lot of error messages.

[Daniel_BDE69]

Hey,

I have been using for a week now and i have to say that i find it a bit more not nice to use when i have to visual stuff. I very much like to functionallity of the on object interaction in the sense that you can double click on the visuals and the get send to the visual pane and the section of that pane so you easy can change to simple things. But i really dont like the new look and structure it adds to the pane section on the right side of your screen. To me personal i have to use extra time to find more completed formating sections in visual pane.

So i would very much love to have to functionallity of the on object interaction with the visual with the double click and taken to the visual panel where to it the specific double click, but i absolutly perfer the "standart look" of power bi with data and visualzation next to each other.

I hope this help

[Severofm]

Me too.

[stevewingjr]

• What changes would you like to see?
  • Add a "Pin" icon similar to vertical tabs in Edge
  • Bring back Double-Arrow to "Collapse" icon next to "Close" icon (similar to legacy panes)
  • "Close" should not remove the icon from the pane switcher - it should just return it to the bar. The current "Close" action should only occur in the "Customize Pane Switcher" menu (or with a right-click option to "Remove from Pane Switcher")
• If you turned off the preview switch, why?
  • First time I tried I turned off immediately as it added too many clicks to work. Second time was better, I turned off after a day or so, but still not intuitive and still added too many clicks (though fewer than before)
  • I turned back on when I realized I could "ctrl+click" to open multiple panes. That's SUPER useful and actually resolves one of my biggest issues when interracting between two expanded panes, particularly the "Data" & "Build a visual (docked)" panes or "Selection" & "Format" panes when docked.
    
• Any suggestions for addititional settings or capabilities?
  • Better management/separation (or consolidation?)/identificaiton of specific "Format" object pane options. Separate contextual information is very confusing. When I select a visual, why do I get
    
    1. A dynamic ribbon for "Format" options on top (with NONE of these options available on a pane) AND
    2. Multiple TABS of "Format" options condensed on a single pane:
       
       • Page/Group/Shape/Visual/Button etc.
       • Properties
       • (with NONE of these options available on a ribbon - would much prefer the ability to perform the same action in multiple ways/places)
    3. Consider separating "Properties" pane icon from "Format" pane icon?
  • Add action similar to Panes in Excel that allow me to "Move" (undock) panes from the right side of the window to a separate (floating) window, dock on the left etc. I'd love to be able to move panes to my other monitor and keep my report/data view full-screen...would appreciate splitting Report/Table/Model views onto separate monitors as well.

[Severofm]

In short, Microsoft tinker and tinker and abandon development and return to the previous standard by introducing improvements. Fewer clicks is more.

[Anonymous]

Most useless feature of power bi, I wish this should not become permanent.

[CraigsterT]

It's rubbish.

[edgedata]

Hi,

I've been trying to get used to the on-object interaction feature since it was first released.  I think new users who have never worked with Power BI may be okay with it.  They would learn how to work with visualizations, setting and data this way from the start.  I've been working with Power BI since 2015 and am struggling to get used to this new way.  It's just too different from the original way of working with Power BI.  I'm much less efficient because I keep having to rethink where everything is and how it's laid out. For me. I feel it will continue to be difficult to work with since I've learned Power BI from the ground up with original way of working with objects.

Thanks for allowing the feedback!

[SDittmannFleet]

Just recently, when I click on a visual, what pops up is "Formatting options are unavailable for this visual". Never saw this before?

[SDittmannFleet]

MS Support confirms they could only reproduce the issue when they activated "on-object" interaction. This has me conclude that it is a bug and needs to be fixed. I for one will be reverting to the old way of doing things if it keeps happening.

[Severofm]

I have already returned to the current default and disabled the new one.

[freppy]

Turned this off after a few days of usage, I hope this does not become a permanent feature.

Found this very clunky and unintuituve, also took much longer to make quick changes to tables since you have to click twice on each object to get the rows / columns / values to show up, and if I then want to do a column sort I have to click back in to see the rows / columns / values to then add / change fields each time. Has increased the time it takes to build complex reports significantly.

[mussaenda]

Agree. 

At first it was like, "oh, cool". Then as I use it for a week or so, 

It was like, "nah, it is better with the default before".

It's good actually, because it gives us a better space for the building the report.

But it takes time to always click the visual then build then scroll down, then find the data.

Sooo, hope it will not be permanent.

[Severofm]

totally agree.

[mrlutton]

Definitely just a confusing change that doesn't add any value, as far as I can tell. What is the reasoning/benefit? It also was not communicated very well to users from my perspective, so folks are just confused when they don't see what they expect to see. Any type of MAJOR interface change, which this definitely is, should be clearly explained and well documented -- as it is, users spend hours looking for "what's wrong with my power BI", or "where is my visualization pane"... please do not make this mandatory for the long haul.

Now, if I missed something and there is actually a benefit for this, please do let me know. The pane swticher functionality does not seem to work well, options seem to disappear for no apparent reason. The changes seem clunky, and not helpful.

[foodd]

Consider, Staff to this Forum Post were asked about sharing the Private Preview feedback from the cohort that participated, and it darn near fell on deaf ears.  The bottom line is there is no transparency around how all this came about, and what is intended.

[JohnF1966]

@foodd wrote "The bottom line is there is no transparency around how all this came about, and what is intended."

The response that was given to another user when asked would Microsoft really listen to user feedback, is that they look at many sources for feedback, but the thing that stood out to me is that they said "we have found in our research that using familiar patterns from other Microsoft products helps to onboard inexperienced users quicker."

My reply was "I can tell you that your research is flawed when it comes to using Power BI."

Here is a link to that response. Scroll up and down to see the full content of the discussion.

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Share-your-thoughts-on-the-new-On-Object-Interacti...

[Severofm]

@foodd I had a very similar response, see that I was asked to wait for June and July, but August and September have also passed, and they are light years away from an interface that has advantages over the current one, I'm still optimistic, I hope they implement several new features in the current standard and that’s it.

[mrlutton]

Yeah none of this is surprising really... companies do what they want. As someone who used to be a customer, then an employee at Tableau, I can tell you that regardless of how they market their customer-centric focus, feature changes are about either A) making developers happy/lives easier or B) money. I am glad that there is a way to turn this off, for now - let's hope it does not become permanent. I have had so many problems with options disappearing in the pane switcher, and I find absolutely no benefit to the on-object interaction despite seeing others promote it as helpful in one way or another. 

I don't oppose change, but it needs to make sense and be well communicated to users. Why not have some sort of message when something like that comes out to all users, or a prompt when you open the software to let you know about the change and how to revert back to what you are familiar with? I just see so many ways to avoid this confusion... but alas, I'm not a software developer, just a meager data visualization consultant/analyst, so I suppose what I say doesn't really matter much 🙂

[Severofm]

I agree with you.

[foodd]

Would you go back to Tableau?