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.

[GaryC]

I wonder how many times we have to repeat the complaints of inefficencies and requiring more effort to do the same work? These comments have been coming in for a year now, but MS persists in going down this design road.

[YanySASiek]

Thank you for taking feedback from the community on the On-Object Interaction Feature; love the willingness to always improve 🙂.

The recent updates to the feature, particularly in the November 2023 version, have definitely improved the tool. However, I have decided to continue to turn it off because it is not as intuitive as working without it.

More specifically, my main reason for not using the feature is that it requires more effort to create a visual than not using it. One of the recent updates allowed the fields pane to be expanded so that all text for fields/measures could be viewed. However, when trying to add data to the visual, the second pane cannot be expanded. This is very limiting and it would be great to add the expansion feature to this level (See red highlight in image below showing where the user cannot expand the pane)

Yany

[Severofm]

I've always really appreciated the new BI updates, I've been using Power BI since 2008 and for me a big difference are the monthly updates, but the "On-object interaction feature" was the worst experience and disappointment I've had, and they are already months and months of failed attempts at updates that simply don't make the experience better compared to the current one, so I always return to the default by turning off the feature. There is no way to be productive using this preview.

[cassidy]

I gave it a few months of updates and tried it for 2 days after the Nov update.  Turned it off again out of frustration.  It's breaking my workflow and slowing down development considerably.  I realize all I'm trying to accomplish is get the settings set up to try and emulate the current functionality.

[iBusinessBI]

Very sad...

Each month I try to use it and every time have to turn this off.

It's like as if who develops it doesn't use it at all. Otherwise they would experience all kinds of problems:

* "build visual pane suddenly collapses when clicking on an object other that visual and it takes extra click to get it open again

* "Build a visual" and "format" are two separate panes (instead of one) that take screen space so the report is smaller.

Turn off again

[GaryC]

Similar results with me. While I'm forcing myself to use the new interface, I experience random issues, including pinned panes closing. When I'm in a crunch to get work done, I revert to the old interface to avoid confusion, aggravation, and impediments to progress.

[jusTodd]

Hard to turn it off again.  This is just too awkward and as noted in a few of the replies to related post Re: Share your thoughts on the new On-Object Inter... - Page 2 - Microsoft Fabric Community .... completely random functionality is missing.

[AshleyJ17]

 Hi There, apologies if this has been shared already, when using the on-object interaction i couldnt seem to change my values on a matrix visual to % of Column Total, usually under the Show Value As option this was there, but it wasnt showing any show value as options for me (or similar) while using this preview feature. Once i turned this feature off i could access these options again using the same columns in my data

[pirkkali]

This feature brokes my Desktop so I wasn't able anymore drag&drop column in visual field list. I had to turn the feature off to be able work.

[GPChierentin]

I have experienced some annoying situations with this functionality, despite insisting on its use or stubbornness.

For example, in a project where a colleague has applied the implicit calculation to a measurement, transforming from "total" to "percentage", using "Show value as > Percent of grand total", when this feature is enabled it is not possible to do this.

1- using PBI with disabled on-object interaction, is possible change it:

2- when it is enabled, is impossible:

[QC]

I am not fan of this feature, but it seems to me you can simply right-click on the field and change it, screenshot below with it enabled >>

[GPChierentin]

I'm not fan too, but I'm just supporting a project.

I have a doubt about your screenshot: are you using any field in the table or a measure that calculates, for example, a distinct number of records (like the case I took)?

I don't have access to PBI to test right now, that's why I post here.

[QC]

I tested both sum(amount) as measure and as field, on table and bar chart visuals, it works, give it a try when you can, although any measure needs to return a scalar value, not a table for it to work on a chart.

[GPChierentin]

I really don't know how to explain why, but I can't do this when the feature is enabled.

If I use the column then I can apply some aggregation, for example, "Count" or "Count (Distinct)".

However, using a measure that makes the DISTINCTCOUNT (like previous aggregation) and then applying the "% GT" is not possible using object interaction, only if I disabled it.

I just tested creating a new look and even with it I can't do it.

[jusTodd]

X-Axis goal lines are not allowed either.  It is only possible without OnObject Interaction.

[GPChierentin]

Here's another example, thanks!

[gmsamborn]

I was just watching a video on DAX Query View by Marco Russo and even he had problems with the new interface (for 30 seconds).

That speaks volumes.

[jusTodd]

Please change the navigation buttons on the pane switcher.  It is awkward at best.

The X in the pane switcher is huge pain in the neck!  

I find myself constantly opening things that I have inadvertantly closed.

The user experience would feel better if the option were to simply collapse the pane only.

What exaclty is the use case for closing a pane versus collapsing anyhow?  It is not memory hog.  Closing it does not appear to offer any benefit except enabling users to have to click twice more time to get to open again.

The current user experience for this is backwards.

Two clicks to collapse, click again to re-open; and, one click to close, with two Clicks to re-open.

I recommend one clicks to collapse, click again to re-open; and, two clicks to close, and two clicks to re-open.

That is, unless you can somehow make it so that there is ever only one click, like getting rid of close altogether.

I suspect that most would agree that collapse should be the primary action and not close.  If nothing else, give me a collapse button!  I should not have to click twice to collapse the pane out of the way.

[RosieL]

Great news - we're swapping the default behavior to be collapse instead of close with the new default configuration planned for December. Check out the November blog update that has the list of what to expect for December's new default.

[QC]

Hi Rosie, Nov. update & roadmap have some welcome changes, e.g. stacking instead of closing pane window, expand data fields wider, collapse instead of closing, etc., a step in the right direction.

However, all above are simply making new UI similiar to old experience, the question is - what value does "on-object" really add? Other preview features, such as new card visual, button slicer, calculation group, DAX query view, are all very helpful, but I still couldn't find much real world applicatin of "on-object" after 1 year of trying. 

I think the strategic direction is something your team needs to clearly lay out and communicate to users. If the function allows users to direclty intereact with visual elements, e.g. axis, grid, ticks, plotting area, error bar, legend, trendline, columns, dots, etc. with a single right-click + enriched right-click menu, I'd say it has true value, because that is one of the biggest gaps in current UI.

[iBusinessBI]

Power BI Developers that are working with Power BI many hours a day value efficiency above all.

We do have a MUSCLE MEMORY and it's very efficient!

The old interface allows us to do things FAST, without thinking. Because our muscle memory knows exactly where the Data Pane is, where the Format menu is, where to drag-and-drop field to.

No thinking, super-fast!

But in the new interface everything is JUMPING around: the panes suddenly collapse, they open in different areas, and each time any simple action that took milliseconds before, now makes me stop thinking about my analytical work, and makes me think "where did this pane go now, where should I click...." 

It is just PAINFUL.

And I am not talking about getting used to new pane locations. There are no fixed locations anymore.

The new interface BROKE our MUSCLE MEMORY and does not allow to do things WITHOUT thinking.

And I would expect from the UI specialists to know this stuff.

Too many clicks, too much time spent.

Turn off. Again.