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.

[andrewtuplin]

Turning off.

I would like this feature if it didn't take away the ability to also use the visual pane for adding and modifying data fields. As it is, it doesn't seem possible to do some of the things the pane allowed for (e.g. the options to show data for empty is gone). 

[Jenna4321]

I had to turn this feature off immedtiately, it completely killed my build visuals pane. I couldn't edit anything. I had to find this thread to see what I had turned on that made it so I couldn't do anything on my report: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Build-Visuals-pane-missing-Power-BI-Desktop/m-p/31...

[Severofm]

Note that there was a huge improvement compared to what was there before the October update, although it is still very far from becoming operational and generating any advantage compared to the current one. I also can't spend more than a few hours with this new feature enabled, I waste a lot of time and additional clicks to carry out tasks, which in my case are many and daily. Features disabled by default for me.

[GaryC]

Exactly

[elimcd79]

I am editing my comment after watching this Guy in a Cube's video on on-object editing. For those who havent watched it, it gives some insight into why Microsoft has gone this route. I can understand their logic, but don't agree with it (which I touch on below).

I understand that change requires patience and persistence (and a fair amount of frustration), so I keep turning this on hoping I can grow to like it but I rarely last more than a day before turning it off. While I do appreciate that the new on-object interaction will enable eventual improvements to the Personalize experience, as an advanced Power BI report developer, I see zero benefits to this on-object interaction functionality and many cons.

I work with fairly complex reports, with extensive grouping of objects in the selection pane and a lot of work configuring bookmarks for specific visuals, again, all via the selection pane. Thus I always have the selection pane open in addition to the formatting pane (and often the bookmarks pane open as well!). With the new on-object interaction, I know that I can use CTRL + click to open the Selection Pane in a new secondary pane ...but I can't get it to stay. As soon as I click on something else, the selection pane disappears and I'm back to one pane. This is extremely frustrating and an absolute deal breaker for me!

Any attempt to make a product easier and more intuitive for beginners shouldn't kill efficiency (and increase the likelihood of carpel tunnel from all that clicking) for more advanced users. Furthermore, while Power BI is a Microsoft product, I believe that comparing it to PowerPoint or Word is ill-advised. Power BI is far more sophisticated - and well, powerful - enabling developers to build an app-like experience. Power BI's UI for developers/report designers should reflect this, rather than trying to mimic the UI for other simpler Microsoft Office applications.

[elimcd79]

As others have mentioned, the December update is a huge relief! I've had the new UI on for more than 24 hours without major frustrations. Initially I didn't like that the collapse icon turned off/closed the panel but after giving it a bit of use, I realize I like it, because getting it back is a single click, so no different than getting it back by clicking to expand.

[leniorcortivo]

This is the kind of improvement that doesn't really give any improvement in the tool.

[Severofm]

In my opinion, there are some good ideas that can be implemented in the current standard, but this new one is anti-productive as a whole.

[GaryC]

I've tried this feature with every monthly release since February and still my basic complaint has not been resolved. It still take too many clicks to open/reopen the various menus to reach the values I want to work with. I guess it would be fine if I was only going to maybe just work on the visual formating. However, when working with editing selections and bookmarks and adjusting visuals to fit with various page changes, an extras click is required for everything. So, for a beginners interface, it may be fine, but for anyone trying to do more complex editing, it is still just as cumbersome as it has been from the beginning of this "upgrade." [Sarcasm] I'm turning it off yet again. Who knows, maybe it will be better in November, but I doubt it. I have as much faith in that happening as I do having Microsoft focusing its efforts elsewhere and leaving the more than adequate original interface alone.

[leniorcortivo]

Exaclty. If the efforts were redirected to increase de usability and agility of the current state to reduce the amout of clicks that we have to do now, then I would call an improvement. Sometimes in order to be more productive we just need to keep it simple.

[Severofm]

totally agree

[JohnF1966]

As I mentioned here (https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Share-your-thoughts-on-the-new-On-Object-Interacti...) I'm now able to work more efficiently with this on-object feature, however the one thing that I'd like to request changed is replacing the 'X' when a side pane is open with the double chevrons (>>) to collapse the pane. The 'X' completely removes the pane from pane switcher and is easily clicked-on with the thought that it will just collapse the pane. This is frustrating and involves more clicks to go to the 'View' ribbon to reinstate it. 100% of the time I just want to collapse the pane, not remove it, so changing the 'X' to '>>' would be more work efficient and user freindly. I'm attaching a picture for a visual of what I'm talking about.

[Bella42]

Here's an idea. Why don't you scrap this fatally flawed 'feature' and put your efforts on improving the existing interface and functions. Like being able to lock individual visuals/elements on the page. Like redesigning that ridiculous Edit Interactions function (you have to move everything out of the way to turn off a buried visual, or hide and unhide. Also no way to bulk turn on or off that I can find). 
I must admit the daily barrage of negative comments for the On-object interaction 'feature' have been a source of amusement for me as people TRY to be polite but often fail. I'm not even going to try. Get rid of it. Focus on some basic issues that people have been whinging about for years. Once you get what you already have right, then maybe experiment with something new. But you are a long way from that scenario.

[Severofm]

This was one of the reasons I disabled the feature, I constantly ended up closing everything thinking that I would only close what I was clicking on. I continue to think that several good ideas that were launched here can be incorporated into the standard resource, which is much, much more efficient and intuitive than what has been proposed so far.

[jenkins]

I can get used to it, but now I cannot read the full name of measures so having trouble selecting the ones that I want to add to visuals.  Why is the pane when adding measures to a visual so narrow?  Boo!

[RosieL]

You can resize the width of the build menu by dragging the edge: Power BI August 2023 Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI We're releasing the ability to resize the data (second) flyout in November. Hope this helps!

[gtmoten]

@RoRo Will it remember the width set by the user?
There is not yet support for this trivial feature for the existing panes 😞
Saving those values to the registry is something an intern could do in an hour, but would benefit thousands of users. 

[A_J_K]

How do you change the order on table visuals? The on-object builder is not allowing me to drag and drop data to change the order they are displayed in the visual.

[SDittmannFleet]

I've been using this feature for a few weeks. It seems to be come more and more unstable. First I had issues w/ getting the formatting pane to display properly. Then, and this just started, the data well ("Build Visual") wouldn't come up anymore, so I moved it into the pane switcher, to no avail. THe thing that broke the camel's back was "Sync Slicer" became unresponsive. I am switching this off for now until Microsoft has their act together. 

[Severofm]

If it were just the bugs it would be fine, for me the biggest problem remains the concept. I will not use this new resource unless there is really an advantage making construction easier and we really have an advantage in using it. I sincerely hope that MS maintains the standard option and does not disable it, otherwise I will be forced to migrate to another BI such as Tableau, which I already use.

[Bella42]

You might be waiting a while 😂