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!

[Frankie_Vannini]

Hi there

I've got a small vertical aligment issue the minute I use a unichar icon to display a negative or positive icon related to the value, waiting for conditional formatting option. This happens only using DIN Font bigger than 18 points

In essence I use this code for the visual calculation:

YoY % = 

VAR Curr = [ITEM]

VAR Prev = PREVIOUS([ITEM],COLUMNS)

VAR Result = DIVIDE(Curr-Prev,Prev)

VAR Color_Icon = if (Result >=0, UNICHAR(128994),UNICHAR(128308))

RETURN

if( Result = BLANK(), 

BLANK(),

CONCATENATE(

Format ( Result, "0.0% ") , ColorIcon

    )

)

the result is this one:

 

so using font DIN 14 on the left no significant vertical misalignement, while using DIN 34 I have a vertical misalignement. No issues with other fonts

By the way, any suggestion to change numbers in green or red using DAX and/or HTML?

Thanks

F

[gregst]

Hello again,
I solved my problem. The naming of the column seems weird for the New Calculation.
If I rename my column Calendar[ST Week] with ST Week all is working well.
Is it possible the square bracket [ ] create the problem ?

[jeroenterheerdt]

it's likely the 'Calendar' part that got confused as a table reference. In general I'd recommend not naming columns like that as Power BI is prone to think A[B] is a reference to a column B on a table A.

[abpgupta]

When I add Visual Calculation, export data option is gone so it looks more for adhoc reports but not reports where users are looking all features.

[jeroenterheerdt]

hello - export is not supported yet and is listed in our documentation as a limitation. We will enable export eventually.

[jfilhoul]

Need a lot that kind of export !! 🤩

[Anonymous]

It's really amazing, thank you very much!
I was wondering if there is any code we can write for new calculations or something similar to change colors inside a single visual or customize the visual according to our needs. Some visuals have very limited options?

[jeroenterheerdt]

can you give me some examples maybe? You can already use format code and conditional formatting to format many things, but curious to learn what specifically you are looking for. many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your response.

I am currently using Facet Key and having several issues with it. While I found the solution to a similar problem helpful and managed to resolve the coloring issue, the colors still don't match my dashboard. I noticed that Facet Key has the capability to change colors based on category. 

[jeroenterheerdt]

ah thank you, the facet key is a custom visual so these will have formatting limitations or do things differently compared to built-in visuals.

[Chita]

Hey! It's really a great feature. I think it would be more helpful if we can filter these new visual calculation columns in visual filter panel. 

[jeroenterheerdt]

agreed - filtering on visual calculations is not yet possible and a documented limitation.

[Schrage]

Really appreciate this option. Smashing the like-button. Two items that would be super helpful: 

• Conditional Formatting (looks like you are already tracking that)
• A way to view the underlying low-level functions so it makes it easy to add to the model. I have a difficult time contextualizing the context in which I want to view things - being able to create a visual using these simple ones would go a long way to helping me execute more efficiently. 

Thanks again - I appreciated your YouTube video!

[jeroenterheerdt]

thank you - can you elaborate a little bit more on the second point maybe? Am I correct in understanding you'd like to see a way for you to see the window function (such as window/offset/index) you'd invoke if you'd wrote the visual calculation as a measure?

[Schrage]

Correct, it may not be feasible, but I'll give an example:

• I have a YoY chart calculating sales by Fiscal Year. Using the SAMEPERIOD function in a measure on the same table, I get slightly different numbers because our fiscal years don't align YoY. 
• I know there are probably ways to solve for this more efficiently, but I don't own the datasources I am working from and contextually I am a bit lost when it comes to defining the context for the measure I want to see.  
• In the new visual calculation, I see exactly what I want to see (albeit without conditional formatting yet!).  If I could understand the context around what is happening to get to those numbers, or better yet, a "suggested measure" I could use that measure as an example measure to populate other visuals.

I am a bit of a novice, but I imagine more and more of your users are in a similar boat converting from Excel and trying to contextualize their visuals.  Regardless, this new feature is helpful!

[BigRob]

have you tried using the Performance Analyzer ? this could be an additional feature that breaks down the visual calculation elements as well as the underlying dax.  

[jeroenterheerdt]

ok, thanks for clarifying. We are thinking about how allow you to "promote" your visual calculation to a model measure, so hopefully that will cover what you are after.

[BigRob]

looks like it will be a great feature and would make a lot of my reports much simpler but is there any plan to release it for the on premise report server version ?  

[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.