Filter precedence for PowerAutomate

[onlycallisto]

I have a report published to PowerBI service with no filters applied. 
I use PowerAutomate to loop through a list of filters to produce a bunch of pdf reports using the Report Level Filters tool in the "Export to File for PowerBI Reports" connector.
If the list of filters contains an incorrectly formatted value, the report level filter fails and the resulting pdf is an unfiltered report containing everyone's information. This is rare but is not something I can 100% prevent from happening.

I want the fail result to be a blank report rather than an unfiltered report (ie. "fail closed" rather than "fail open"). I thought to publish the report with a prexisting blank filter: 

thinking that my automated report-level filter might override it: 

but it seems that the blank wins in precedence, and the above just produces all blank reports.

Does anyone have advice on how to approach this?

[Anonymous]

Hi @onlycallisto,

As we haven’t heard back from you, so just following up to our previous message. I'd like to confirm if you've successfully resolved this issue or if you need further help.

If yes, you are welcome to share your workaround and mark it as a solution so that other users can benefit as well. If you find a reply particularly helpful to you, you can also mark it as a solution.

If you still have any questions or need more support, please feel free to let us know. We are more than happy to continue to help you.
Thank you for your patience and look forward to hearing from you.

[Anonymous]

Hi @onlycallisto,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

It looks like you are using filters and if the filtered data contains an incorrectly formatted value, the report should show no data rather than all data. Were you able to go through the solution suggested by @GilbertQ. 

Apart from the suggested points, you can also try to catch all invalid filter. Instead of using a blank filter, try setting a default filter to "Does not Exist". This makes sure that by default, the report will show no data. 

I would also take a moment to thank @GilbertQ, for actively participating in the community forum and for the solutions you’ve been sharing in the community forum. Your contributions make a real difference.

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

If this post helps then please mark it as a solution, so that other members find it more quickly.

Thank you.

[onlycallisto]

The issue with using blank or does not exist filter is that the Report Level Filters do not over-ride it when it's run through PowerAutomate. So I just get a blank report for everyone. That is the basis of my question - is there a way to have it default to no data while still making it possible to filter using Report Level Filters?
The suggestion so far is to run a manual test before every execution of the flow, which is time intensive and not the purpose of automation. I could do it that way but it's not really the solution I was hoping for.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @onlycallisto,

Since report level filters in Power Automate do not override pre-applied blank filters, my previous suggestions wouldn’t work as intended. Your goal is to have a default state of no data, but still allow Power Automate to dynamically apply valid filters.

Instead of setting a pre-existing filter in PowerBI, a better approach would be to use a DAX-based conditional filter that only hides data when no external filter is applied.

Use this DAX measure:

DataVisibility =
IF(
COUNTROWS(ALLSELECTED('Table'[provider_name])) = 1,
1,
0
)

Now apply this measure as a filter on all report visuals. Go to filters pane and add "DataVisibility" as a Visual-Level Filter for all visuals and set the filter condition to "DataVisibility = 1" and then publish the report. 

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

If this post helps then please mark it as a solution, so that other members find it more quickly.

Thank you.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @onlycallisto 

What I would recommend doing is to first create a DAX measure to see if there are any blank profile names. If there are, then do not run the report. Otherwise run the reports with the provider names supplied.

[onlycallisto]

I guess that is one approach, but I was hoping for a fix that doesn't add an extra step every time I want to run the report. If it's not possible I will create a test or check as you suggest.