BUG - POWER BI Scatterplot Creates and Populates Graph with Blank Values

[nhaglund]

Pictured is a graph that I am working with. X-Axis represents a date value and Y-Axis an integer ($) value. The purpose of the graph is to show opportunities at the amount and date (scrolling over a scatterplot point elicits the image below).

It is imperative that the x axis is ordered to track opportunity deadline (their award dates). The creation of this graph was not intuitive. Thus, I will briefly discuss below (1) the problem with making the desired graph, (2) the solution, and the (3) solution's associated bug.: 

1.) The Problem with making the desired graph

A1.) When the Legend field is populated, the date values on the x axis will not order and will act as an unorderable categorical variable (as shown below; see closely that dates are out of order) 

A2.) The Legend field needs to be populated to make each scatterplot point distinct and unique as per the opportunity title, each of which is unique. If the amounts are summed, the scatterplot point becomes a meaningless sum of seperate opportunities (categorical variables). PBI naturally sums these amounts when the x axis date value is selected to be it's original amount instead of a date heirarchy (see image below).

B.) The Legend field does not need to be used if the X-Axis value is changed to be a date heirarchy and then the Y axis value can be changed from "Sum" to "Don't Summarize" (see first image below). However, doing this significanly limits the ability of the user to see opportunities (scatter point dots) in one large timeline, as all the dots become clumped into the given date heirarchy category (pictured is year) AND drilling down elicits an error for quarter and month levels, but not day (see second image below).

2.) My Solution

In order to solve point A, and bypass option B as this is not appropriate for the user AND has errors, I turned on "Show blank values" for the Y-axis under the format section of visualizations (see pictured).

This allowed the x-axis date value to be order-able AND retained the graph's label field (which as I mentioned is necessary to keep the scatterplot points unsummed by being unique categorical variables; please note scale type is "Linear" for the Y-axis and graph's Y-axis slider, see first picture in post for reference).

3.) My Solution's Associated Bug

The graph first pictured in this post has a series of scatterplot points that line the very bottom of the graph (point 0, aka $0, on the y-axis and every point along the x-axis). These scatterplot points do not exist in the data set, PBI creates them, which is the bug. The name of the scatterplot point (on hover) is based off of an existing scatterplot point with populated fields, so the name itself exists, however the point represents a nonexistant blank duplicate in the data set (and to reiterate, the data set I am working with has no blank values, aka $0, to be shown on the y-axis (see pictured below).

And see pictured below the dot on click (each dot of which is titled to represent a "Supply Chain Support" rown in the data set which doesn't exist for that amount once, let alone multiple times).

In fact, I even put in a filter to try and rid the graph of these dots and they still appear! (see filter pictured below; the filter is for the y-axis integer amount).

A quick solution would be to say to turn of the y-axis's "Show Blank Values" option but as I've stated (1) I need this so the dates are able to be order on the x-axis (which seems like a bug in and of itself, but not the bug in question here) and (2) the blank values pictured don't exist in the data set to begin with (the bug in question)!! PBI seems to be creating values based off of existing ones, multiple times (enough to populate every single point along the x-axis). There are no blank values rows/cells to be shown, every y and x axis point has a populated data set row that, in the case of the y-axis, does not amount to $0 ever.

Please see attached a link to the published graphs for your reference. And please help me solve this...

Thanks

-Noah Haglund

Business Development Coordinator at Food for the Hungry, Inc

[v-yingjl]

Seems that could not reproduce it in my side as far as my test.

In addition, the link you have provided directs to Power BI signon page, perhaps you can re-share it. If you want to share the simple sample file which could remeber this issue, please remeber to remove any sentive information in it.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Yingjie Li

[nhaglund]

Hello @v-yingjl ,

I may not be able to share the published PBI link with people outside of my organizartion. This forumn does not allow me to directly upload a .pbix file so I added the filed to Google Drive and you can download it from there.

Thanks so much. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

-Noah