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.

[AMcg19]

I agree! Please have a collapse button just like the Filter Pane. We need to collapse a pane and then easily activate it again in the same place. We don't like having to search over by the pane switcher to get it docked again. This is extra clicks and too cumbersome.

[QC]

Which is exactly the same as current UI, so after 1 year of development we are circling back to the starting point 😂

What has "on-object" accompolished so far, other than editing chart titles? 

Can we now interact directly with chart elements, e.g. axis, grid, legend, plot area, data points? Or can we right-click to add a hyperlink to matrix header? Or right-click to "set as total" on a waterfall? 

If the answer is no, then well .. it is a complete waste of engineering resources

[Severofm]

I agree, if all the suggestions are followed we will return to the starting point which is still much better than the proposal.

[gtmoten]

Regardless of if  OOE ever becomes worth using, the execution and delivery of this feature will become a case study for future Info Tech students on how not to do it. 

There is excellent work being done by other teams in the group on other new features for PBI Desktop. Whoever is responsible for OOE needs to have a chat with them.

[marianadinf]

I ve been following PowerBi since 2017 literrally every single month to date in terms of feature release.

This is by far the worst feature and change brought to powerbi, i've tried to use it for some time and genuinely struggling with it, just not intuitive, doesnt save time apart from title editing and this just does not work on daily use (and slower). I understand the intent to match it to excel or other office UI tool but clearly PLEASE if anything make this optional. I barely ever put any comment on any social media but here took this effort to ensure we have the option to turn this off. Powerbi product roadmap is very smart and well thought through along all these years and this one has to be about the biggest draw back if we were forced to use it.

[johnmelbourne]

Just awful.  Please always make optional to turn off and never make generally available. 

[GaryC]

I have complained about this feature from the beginning. I've tried each version, but always finding a reason or reasons to turn it off. I have workied with the November release through the updating of three reports that I've developed. I found it to be at least tolerable, allowing me to complete updates without throwing my hands up in frustration and turning the feature off again.

However, it is still buggy. Several times when trying to perform straight forward tasks, such as changing the order/layering of items in the selection pane, all the open/"pinned" panes would suddenly close, requiring me to open them and work my way back to where I was.

I don't like having to "pin" my desired panes open for each page of my report. It would be better if I could open and "pin" panes and would remain open until I close them. I don't like that when collpsing panes, they are removed from the list of panes, requiring me to find and select them again. I would also much prefer they simply collapse, like the filter pane currently does , and remain there for me to click and retore them.

So I admit that it is getting better, but I still prefer the original interface better. I'm still holding onto hope that MS will not force this new default to be only option and allow users to make their own decision on which interface they prefer to work with.

[Severofm]

I also noticed several improvements in the November update, but there are many bugs that need to be fixed, I can't waste time on this and that's why I disabled it. I also hope this doesn't become the default, or at least that they keep the two options to choose from.

[JohnF1966]

I like that we can now resize the data flyout (second flyout), but I don't use the 'Build a Visual' pane from the build button on the object itself, I use it pinned to the Pane Switcher on the right and I'd like to see that same resizing ability applied there as well. 

[JohnF1966]

I'm liking the November 2023 update to the On-Object feature where you can now keep all your panes open. This was much needed.

[QC]

Gave it another try ... it crushed my report. Switched back to classic mode, no such issue. 

On top of being pointless click-adding-maniac, "on-object" is also far from stable. 

[RosieL]

Hi QC - Sincere apologies you ran into this crash. Could you provide the build version you ran into this issue?

[hemamaleni]

Hello Rosie, In Matrix, when a cell element is added with background fx using a measure, a grey border is added around the cell. Is there a way to remove the border line?

[JohnF1966]

When I'm in the 'Build a visual' pane and I click on the '>' in the 'Columns' section it opens up a side pane titled 'Data' where I can click on the drop down in the 'Field' section which allows me to select or search for a field.(see 'Search Bar Visible' Image below which shows what is displayed when I click on the top item in the list titled 'Column1'). This is good, however when I have a lot of tables in my model and I click on the second column titled 'Column2' the search bar is hidden and off the screen at the top (see 'Search Bar Missing' image below).

Please take a look and correct this.

[JohnF1966]

@RosieL

The December 2023 update did not address the above mentioned issue of the search bar being off-screen. Is this being looked at? And will it be fixed in the next update?

[RosieL]

Hi @JohnF1966 the fix will be in the next release, which is the February build. Apologies for the delay

[Severofm]

The November update has more bugs than the previous ones and is impossible to work with. Deactivating, again.

[appsac]

This feature is terrible.  I keep closing the data and visualizations panes and have to go to View menu to make visible again.  You can only add a column to an existing table/matrix visual at the end and then move it up to where you want it.  Please don't make this feature permanent.

[AUaero]

Personally I hate it.  This "improvement" is completely unintuitive, breaks existing functionality, requires more clicks to accomplish the same tasks, and breaks existing workflow practices.  Please kill this "feature" before making it required for all users.

[cwollett]

I can definitely see use cases where this on-object interaction would be beneficial. However, for those whose jobs center around creating reports & dashboards that have numerous visuals, the consistency of the pinned panes on the right (turning on-object preview off) is superior in my opinon.

Having the visual formatting pane visible at all times is a huge help. I can click between objects to quickly see if stylings match. This is a cumbersome task with on-object formatting.

Having the panes disappear when you click off an object is also surprising and unintuitive. I would want things like bookmarks/selection/data to persist until I close it.

All that is to say, I'm not opposed to keeping the on-object menus for those that find them useful. But if that comes out of preview/into production, I would hope there is a way for users to configure whether they want pinned panes.

[AMcg19]

Collapse a Pane. 

Some of the panes I use more than others.  When I collapse a pane I frequently use to make more room on my screen or when I am not immediately using it - the pane disappears over to the pane switcher.  Then I have to go back over and find it again by searching at the icons.   The behaviour of collapse is much better when it actually collpases - like the filter pane - just one click to collapse and one click to open and I can read the title of the pane I have just collpased.    It would be a much better experience if can choose to have the panes I am using frequently to simply collpase and we can still see the heading, just like the filter pane.  This way it is easier to find, quicker to use and much more slick.  I think that we could also have the choice to 'park' the panes we dont frequently use over on the pane switcher but still have the option to collapse - like the filter pane.