Share your thoughts on visual calculations (preview)

[jeroenterheerdt]

Hit "Reply" and let us know what you think of visual calculations! To learn more about this feature, please visit the blog post or our documentation.

Here are some areas that we'd like to hear about in particular:

• errors / issues you are experiencing
• functionality that is missing / does not work as you expected that is not listed as limitations in our documentation.
• suggestions on governance capabilities
• sorting behavior of visual and visual matrix

Thanks and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

[jeroenterheerdt]

It's really dependent on the source you're using - if you are using Analysis Services on premises then it will take a long time for it to be ready there. But eventually, yes, it should be available for report server as well.

[jeroenterheerdt]

Tagging everyone who has specifically mentioned format strings in their feedback - please send me a DM with your email address. I'd like to set up a focus group to discuss our options. If you're interested in this and I didn't tag you, send me a DM as well 🙂

@Anonymous, @MalinaCS, @pcourtemanche , @zbWorkProfile , @Pim_7890 

[Anonymous]

I think this will eventually be a great feature, however I don't see this as very usable at the moment.  The fact that you can't format the calculations, e.g. you give the ability to use template for % of total, but not able to format that instictively as a percentage. Yes I use FORMAT, however that sort of defeats the purpose if it is text.  Also conditional formatting will be essential to make this a truly powerful feature.  

[jeroenterheerdt]

thank you, these are both on the limitations list and currently being worked on to support.

[MalinaCS]

I totally agree: formatting is crucial.

P.S. Thank you fo this awesome feature! 

[PawelHalamoda]

Unfortunately, I am not able to turn on this functionality. Of course, I included this feature in preview features, but after restarting the application, it still does not work. Reinstallation, as suggested by Microsoft technical support, also does not work.

[jeroenterheerdt]

sorry to hear you're having issues. Are you seeing any error messages? The "new calculation" button should show up on the Home ribbon after activation, it's not on the Modeling tab. Also, there should be a "new calculation" option in the menu that shows on right-click on a visual.

If you can't find it after activating, can you please send a screenshot of your home ribbon as well as a screenshot of the about dialog?

[sourica]

Nice job !!

I test this functionnality.

I'd like to use the calculated column into X or Y or category fields in visuals.

For example, I tested this functionnality to simplify a long list of categories.

I wanted to display the 3 main categories + 1 category "OTHERS" in a pie chart.

I suceeded in creating my new category column, but I can't place it in the X column of my bar chart.

[jeroenterheerdt]

hi, thanks for trying this - you can't use visual calculations on the X axis of your bar chart. Is that something you'd want us to enable?

[zbWorkProfile]

Being able to manually designate an axis would be hugely helpful. In my (limited) experience testing visual calculations---working with RUNNINGSUM---not being able to change which axis the calculation runs on presents challenges. Also need that axis to be measure-friendly; I work with a lot of datasets that don't easily allow for indexing/ranking in Power Query or as a calculated column (requiring it instead to be done by measure), and I need to be able to take RUNNINGSUM through that calculated index/rank.

[jeroenterheerdt]

not sure I understand - you can write COLUMNS or ROWS in the axis parameter to switch to the other axis if it's available on your visual. Is that the "axis" you are referring to ?

[jgeoghan]

I have the option checked, have restarted but "new calculation" is not visible.

[jeroenterheerdt]

it's on the Home ribbon, not on Modeling.

[jmdh2]

Hi 

If i have understood the documentation  correctly (*) when visual caldulations are used, it is no more possible to create a public web link.
While  i understand the need to make some features payable, i do not think this is the best way, except if this is for technical reasons, but then it should be explained.

I think this should be adressed via the current licencing mechanism (for instance force the developper to use a premium per user licence) etc, but not by restricting access which is counter productive for all parties.

(*) 

• You can't use the Publish to web functionality with reports that use visual calculations or hidden fields.

[jeroenterheerdt]

currently publish to web is blocked because of a technical issue. It's not licensing driven.

[Carlotta_Fabris]

Will this be solved? If yes when? 
I published to web a dashboard that uses a visual calculation and the table that contains it is not visible. It has the following error:

[jeroenterheerdt]

it will be resolved - it's on the documented list of limitations. 

[pcourtemanche]

I need to format that new calculation. make it currency. I'm not seeing how to do that.

thanks

[jeroenterheerdt]

while FORMAT works, it changes the output to text so you can't use it for further calculations. We will add support for formatting soon.

[lbendlin]

Use FORMAT as the output of the calculation.

[zbWorkProfile]

The only issue with this is that FORMAT returns a text value, which means that if you want to do something like add data bars to the column as a cell element, nothing happens. Which is to say, we need to be able to do more than just format the data in the column; we need to be able to control its data type as well.