Forum Discussion
Format loss when unpivoting columns
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.
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
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.I tried SWITCH but is there a way to maintain different formatting options within that expression? I couldn't figure it out
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