This time we’re going bigger than ever. Fabric, Power BI, SQL, AI and more. We're covering it all. You won't want to miss it.
Learn moreDid you hear? There's a new SQL AI Developer certification (DP-800). Start preparing now and be one of the first to get certified. Register now
Hi everybody,
we were trying to get more distinguishable category feeds working with the categorical input (3 dimension feeds, 1 measure feed) and after some tinkering we came up with a solution. We want to do this, because we need the assignment of dimensions to three different feeds, so they are displayed on different axis.
The solution below gives us exactly the result we want!
BUT: We didn't find anything in the docs, if this setup is valid by any means. We heard from another source, that nested categories are not supported by Power BI. Now we are unsure, if using this is some kind of hack (or bug) or if this is valid and we can rely on it. That this is not gonna break in the future is very important, as it would be catastrophic for our customers.
So my question to you Power BI guys is: Is the setup below OK and valid? Can we be sure, this is gonna work in future API versions as well?
We are defining the dataRoles and dataViewMappings like this:
{
...
"dataRoles": [
{
"displayName": "Rows",
"name": "rowCategory",
"kind": "Grouping"
},
{
"displayName": "Columns",
"name": "colCategory",
"kind": "Grouping"
},
{
"displayName": "Grouping",
"name": "multiples",
"kind": "Grouping"
},
{
"displayName": "Measures",
"name": "measure",
"kind": "Measure"
}
],
...
"dataViewMappings": [
{
"categorical": {
"categories": {
"for": { "in": "rowCategory" }
},
"values": {
"group": {
"by": "colCategory",
"select":[
{ "bind": { "to": "measure" } },
{ "bind": { "to": "multiples" } }
]
}
}
}
},
{
"categorical": {
"categories": {
"for": { "in": "multiples" }
},
"values": {
"group": {
"by": "colCategory",
"select":[
{ "bind": { "to": "measure" } },
{ "bind": { "to": "multiples" } }
]
}
}
}
}
]
}The output is something like below, having two categories for two dimensions/feeds and the third dimension/feed is used for value grouping.
...
"dataViews: [{
"tree": null, "table": null, "matrix": null, "single": null, "metadata": {
"columns": [...]
}, "categorical": {
categories: [
{...},
{...}
],
"values": [
{...},
{...},
{...}
]
}
}]
...
Hi @Anonymous ,
I'm sorry that I couldn't find the relevant official documents to explain whether nested categories are supported or not. But now that this can work normally, it means it is supported. As for whether there is any potential problem or bug in the future, this is hard to say...
Best Regards
Check out the April 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.
Sign up to receive a private message when registration opens and key events begin.
If you have recently started exploring Fabric, we'd love to hear how it's going. Your feedback can help with product improvements.
| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 4 | |
| 2 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 | |
| 1 |