Data Colors Change in Service vs Desktop (different color priorities)

[Coffee]

This is becoming a very big pain point for me.... It is crucial that my colors stay consistent throughout my report, However, the colors will change in the service!!

Below image shows what I have set in Desktop.

Below shows what is in the Service. Even when I try to re-publish my desktop report. The colors won't match. I have to completely delete the report from my service, then publish. And even then it only lasts a day before the colors are changed.

 

You will notice, it is all the same colors in both charts.... However, they are just taking different priorities.... In Desktop, I have the magenta line as top priority, but in the Service, it doesn't follow that.

Please, please, please fix this. There are so many threads about this, that have supposedly been resolved, but the issue is not resolved.

[domputer]

Is This still not fixed. 

[ToyoAxel97]

Hello, 

Yes still no fix but i find a solution:

1- supress the dashboard and the dataset on the service

2- copy and paste the .pbix file on your desktop, and rename it

3- open the new file with the new name

4- change color

5- and re-publish it, the bug is gone, the color that your apply previously are the good one.

I hope it will unblock you

Regards

[PBI-Bro]

It's been five six years. I'm having a miserable morning because the colors of our brand new 2023 report suddenly are completely mixed-up and don't match any of the standards we use for other reports. 

Please. This really needs to be prioritized.

[lcs26481]

I stated in 10/2023 I had not experienced this again, but it happened just now so it's obviously still a problem. 

[mattlee]

This is (unfortunately) a fairly common support topic. First, please refer to:
Use report themes in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
You can have "static" multi-series, which means they are Measures and the count is known before a query. Think Sales, Profit, Revenue, etc. These will take colors by index from your theme. Sales will be ThemeColor1 every time (if it is first in the Build Pane's field well). We do not cache Sales = some theme color, then try to keep it the same across the report.

You can also have "dynamic" series, using a Legend field (dimension) to split a single Measure across groups. Think about showing Sales across different Departments or Regions. In this case, the number of series depends on the number of unique values in that Legend field (how many Departments are there?) hence dynamic. We do cache these, and they are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. If you see Page 1 first, you may get ThemeColor 1-5 assigned to the first 5 Departments, then on Page 2 you will see Regions and ThemeColor 6/7/8 will be assigned to the 3 regions you are seeing. This can lead to some confusion depending on what pages you visit first, or even which queries run faster on the same page, etc.

The best practice is to explicitly set colors in the format pane for your visuals. However, if filters are in play and are later removed, then some series may not be given explicit colors. Also, new groups can be added over time, like a new Sales Region is created, for instance, and it won't have an explicit color assigned until you update the report.

Is there any short-term solution to help you all with making this easier? A toggle to disable the "dynamic" series color cache might help, but then you will get the same color for the first series irregardless of the dynamic grouping, which can be misleading ("red" could mean two different things on the same page).

Maybe add support for two theme sets, one for static and one for dynamic, and cache both?

We think the best solution is to allow report authors to assign colors to both Measures (static series) and Dimension Field values (dynamic series) in the model, so that all reports created from that model will have proper default values. This is somewhat expensive for us to implement, but please let us know if this would help your issues, or if something cheaper might be helpful in the short term.

[lcs26481]

Thank you @mattlee for the information. I can understand how using the template colors could result in this issue. It's a little bit complex for my understanding but I generally get it. My basic understanding simplifies it that if I'm using a template and the colors are not showing right between the desktop and the service and I go into the Desktop and Reselect the colors there should be a way to override the template to "force" the colors to remain as I set up so that the template doesn't take over and replace what would normally be your new color "blue" with color #3, which as you explained it could be light blue on one page or pink on another page or another color pulling up of the data. In my experience this hasn't happened enough to create problems with my users, but some of the other posters have indicated it is a big problem. Giving the ability to override and keep the set color would be better than nothing. Maybe others who experience this have a better way to a explain a solution.