Text Search Deprecated - what is its replacement?

[pmurz]

I am using Text Search and it tells me in the notice below, that it is being deprecated.   The message does not say what is replacing it.  What should I use instead?   Thank you

Visual is not supported and will be deprecated

This visual is using an Old version of interface be deprecated soon. Please replace this visual with an alternative one from our marketplace.

[Anonymous]

It is not a viable alternative as we sometimes needs a search function on text fields where there is no reason neither added value to trade it for a slicer...

[TLB_10107]

@Anonymous Because of the community requests, the visual will stay and the error message will disappear soon. See solution to this topic :).
You are very right though that the slicer is no valid replacement for this visual, but luckily a replacement is not needed anymore!

[Anonymous]

As others have said, the Standard Slicer is NOT a suitable alternative.  It is replacing an elegant solution with a clunky work around. 

Some examples:

 - I want to pull up a graph for a certain part number prefix.  There are 200 parts with that prefix.  I'm suppose to use the search in the Slicer and manually select all 200 boxes?

 - In theory, this shouln't happen much.. but I have seen it much.  Inevitably at some point, when using multiple filters, a user ends up with boxes checked in the Standard Filter that don't show up becuase they've gotten lost in the longer list.  It is not immediately apparent that something is filtered, and users get frustrated wondering why things aren't showing up.   With the Text Slicer, this happens much less often because they see their entry up there.

 - I use the Text Slicer because it uses minimal real-estate... 1 line.  I will have to completely redesign numerous pages to fit a Standard Slicer because you need enough room for the checkboxes.

Finally, I have not seen a satisfactory WHY from MICROSOFT.  I have seen some here say it is because the functionality is in the Standard Slicer.   Unless there is going to be substantial improvement in the Standard Slicer to accomodate what the Text Slicer already provides, this is not a valid answer.

[mlucking]

@Anonymous 

I agree that the slicer option isn't the same.  I have the same issue with selecting certain part numbers but I use the Filter Panel and add the slicer/filter there.  Then you can set those to "advanced filtering" and it gives you a number of ways to filter, including "starts with".  Once you put something in there and apply the filter, it will filter the visual on the page to those products vs having to select each one manually  if you use the slicer on the page.

[Anonymous]

Oh... yeah... now that's intuitive for users!!!  NOT!!!

Again, replacing a simple, elegant solution with an inferior one.

[mlucking]

I just realized that I can set the standard slicer (which we put in the Filter panel), to "advanced" and then use the "contains" function to get the same result as the Text Filter visual so that is a solution. Thanks!

[mlucking]

The search filter on the standard filter slicer does not have the same functionality.  For example, if you have multiple customers with "citi" in the name, the Text filter will filter all visuals on that page to all those customers that have "citi" in the name automatically.  If you use the standard filter slicer, you have to manually select all the customers after the search unless I am misunderstanding how you use the standard filter slicer search option.  Thanks.

[v-stephen-msft]

Hi @mlucking ,

What you said is correct. I recommend a similar alternative view. It is not guaranteed to be 100% the same. The developers of Text Filter visual don't maintain it anymore. Probably, it will be removed from AppSource soon. Please   use alternative visuals.

Best Regards,

Stephen Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[motoray]

So I'm wondering what we should do if--like us--you have a lot of reports published that use this visual? There isn't an alternative that provides the same functionality...at least none that I'm aware of. Just yesterday I was out trying the various alternatives in App Source and they don't filter the same way--at least not the free visuals.

[pmurz]

Hi @motoray 

My biggest concern is that there is no MICROSOFT response to any of this in this forum.   How do we promote this concern to the attention of someone in Power BI Product Management at Microsoft.  They clearly have accountability, but I do not know how to do that. 

Does anyone in this community/forum know how to communicate with MS Power BI team?

Thank you. 

[v-stephen-msft]

Hi @pmurz ,

My last reply was from the Microsoft product group, and Microsoft has officially added a reminder to the desktop.

Best Regards,

Stephen Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[BamDastard]

Stephen,

Appreciate the response, however it is not really helpful. Can you provide details about what happens to existing published reports that contain this visual once it is officially deprecated? Is there a way to query the service to find all reports using this visual if it does need to be replaced?

These are the questions and concerns shared by most of the users in this thread.

[BamDastard]

Just got off the phone with support. They confirm that the visual will be deprecated, but the timeline for the official deprecation is unknown. Once this occurs, the reports that use it will continue to load, but the visual will show an error, will not load any data, and will have to be replaced. Current recommendation is to reconfigure reports to use the slicer visual or an alternative from AppSource, even though they acknowledge that there are no visuals with feature parity.

Further, they confirmed there is no way to identify all the reports that have been published containing this visual. Their recommendation is to manually navigate to each report, open it, go into edit mode, then confirm the visuals it is using and replace/reconfigure as needed.

[pmurz]

Thank you for taking this to MS support. 

The real issue that I read in most of the dialog here is:
> WHY is it being deprecated? and 
> WHAT VISUAL does the MS PRODUCT TEAM (not the support call team ) expect us to use instead?   The alternatives presented so far are suboptimal and the PRODUCT TEAM should have some insight.  

DOES anyone know of a way to communicate directly with the team that makes these choices?

Thanks

[BamDastard]

The product team recommends using the Slicer as a replacement (WHAT VISUAL). My understanding is that they are migrating the functionality of the text filter to the Slicer (WHY), but they could not confirm that all of the functionality would be available before the text filter is officially deprecated.

[pmurz]

@BamDastard , Thank you for the reply.

I originally accepted your response as the solution to the posted question, but I changed my mind.   Your response does explain some portion of the MS product team's approach, but does not solve the problem.   The SLICER visual does not have the search functionality.   I feel that they absolutely should add SEARCH functionality prior to deprecating the TEXT FILTER visual.   

[BamDastard]

Search functionality has been added to the Slicer for datasets that contain strings. It does not work with integers or dates.

[motoray]

[sigh]

[Tim_Gray]

Not exactly the same, but you can use the "Smart Filter" found here: 

https://okviz.com/smart-filter/

[rogerthat]

getting the same notification, anyone find updates on what will happen? kind of at a loss here since its better than using slicer.

[csolutions]

Same here. There's a search option for the slicer visual but you have to select a value after searching. Takes up double the amount of space as the text filter visual.