Paginated Report Interactive Sorting doesn't sort indicators

[mikebeccaria]

I have a paginated report that has a table with interactive sorting on some fields and "Indicators" set up to show progress/completion.

The interactice sorting works on all of the data fields AND the indicators also sort when using the desktop PowerBI Report Builder as shown above.

However, after I publish the report to the PowerBI service, the web version sorts the the data fields, but does NOT sort or update the indicators. A screenshot from the web version is below with the same sort as above showing the indicators did not change with the sort. They remain as they were when the report is first loaded.

Is this expected behavior, and if so how might I resolve this to get the sorting to work with the data fields and the indicators?

[mikebeccaria · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous I decided to try to use a font symbol color coded based on expressions rather than indicators which use images. In my initial testing this has worked! Now to reconfigure everything...annoying but a functional workaround. Thanks for your help in testing and feedback.

[Anonymous]

Hi,@mikebeccaria .Thanks for trying and for sharing your solution on the forum.
You are welcome.

[mikebeccaria]

Thanks for the reply! The indicators I have set up were used using expression forumlas as their value so I was curious to try your recommendation for tying them directly to the data source. To test this, I created a calculated field in the data source that matched the indicator expression, tested that the values were correct in the data source calculated field, and then tied the indicator to that dataset calculated field rather than use a expression formula. When I use interactive sorting, still no luck.

You example only does an initial sorting which works. My solution breaks down when using interactice sorting.

I then added the calculated field directly to the table, turned on interactive sorting on that field, and tried again. Still no luck. None of the indicators shift when using interactice sorting on any of the fields where it is turned on.

I welcome any further insight or ideas you may have.

[Anonymous]

Hi,@mikebeccaria I am glad to help you.
Based on your description, this may be due to some limitations that service currently has for indicator sorting
On service, the interactive sorting feature may not fully support all types of visualization elements in some cases.
I.e. you have the problem: Power BI Report Builder supports sorting of indicators, but after publishing to the Power BI service, the web version of the Interactive Sort feature may not be able to sort or update the indicators.
Here are the results of my testing:

I am placing the indicator and the corresponding field (score) in the same table, and setting the entire table to be sorted in descending order based on the scores
The indicator is added to the table with the sort set, which makes the cell column where the indicator is located part of the data field. Therefore, in this case, the presentation in the Power BI service is consistent with the native Report Builder, and the indicators are sorted along with the data fields.

This approach effectively binds the indicator to the data field and ensures that in Power BI Services, the indicator is updated as the data field is sorted!

The screenshot you provided shows that your table setup is a bit complicated, so you can try what I did: add the indicator to the table with the sorting setup and make sure the indicator is associated with the data field!

Here is the documentation on this, hope it helps.

URL:
Add interactive sort to a table or matrix in Power BI paginated reports - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.

Best Regards,

Carson Jian,

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