Format loss when unpivoting columns

[palmeirense_]

I am working on a report where in the source file, I have a set of columns expressed in different format types (a few are percentages, some are currency, others are fixed decimal number).

Because my end users should be able to slice my visuals by the values in a single column, I had to unpivot columns, however, when doing that, I lose all that formatting. How can I get around this issue?

Thanks!

[v-angzheng-msft]

Hi, @palmeirense_ 

You can use Switch function and format function to help you
When you unpivot the columns, you get an attribute column.
Create a measure like below

_Switch = 
SWITCH(
    SELECTEDVALUE('Table'[Attribute]),
    "Percentage",FORMAT(SELECTEDVALUE('Table'[Value]),"Percent"),//columnName1
    "Currency", FORMAT(SELECTEDVALUE('Table'[Value]),"Currency"),//columnName2
    "Decimal number", FORMAT(SELECTEDVALUE('Table'[Value]),"Fixed"))//columnName3

Result:

Please refer to the attachment below for details.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Zeon Zheng

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

[edhans]

If the unpivoted columns do not share the same data type it will revert to any, or ABC/123. You just need to change the type after the unpivot operation, then change or confirm the format in Power BI. 

Note that data type and format are not the same. You can have it a a currency data type, but still format it as a percent, whole number, etc. in the report layer. But it is important to set the data type in Power Query.

[palmeirense_]

Apologies as I might not have explained this very well.

In my first power query step, I have 5 columns which get unpivoted into only 1 column. I can change formats for this resulting column but I want to be able to have different data types depending on the row value. Is that possible?

[edhans]

No. Each column can only have one data type, or it can be a variant, where it is whatever, but that will always look like text to Power BI and is a mess. 

Don't combine data types into a single column. It might be helpful to explain what you are doing, but putting units, dollars, percents, and text into a single column via Unpivot in Power BI is very likely not the right way to go.

[palmeirense_]

In my report, I have a line chart showing trended metrics on a monthly basis. My hope was, the user could pick which metric they want to trend out from a slicer and if it's dollars per unit, it would show up as currency, if it's share, it would show as a percentage, etc. Maybe I'll explore a different way of showing that

[edhans]

Use a SWITCH measure. See Write Conditional Statement Using SWITCH in DAX and Power BI - RADACAD for guidance.

You could also use a Calculation Group, but that is next level. A SWITCH measure is the cleanest and quickest to implement. Only explore CG's if the performance is not acceptable.

[palmeirense_]

I tried SWITCH but is there a way to maintain different formatting options within that expression? I couldn't figure it out

[edhans]

See this article. 
Dynamic Formatting of Switch Measures in Power BI 💡 - Excelerator BI

or use Calcuation Groups, which can use dynamic formatting and retain numeric formats. But you'd need to reveiw the entire SQL BI series on CG's before using them. Calculation Groups - SQLBI