Persistent Filters are TOO persistent

[kcantor]

While Persistent Filters may be great news for some, This is not true for my company. It was time consuming to open every dataset and turn off the feature but I did all of my datasets that way. That was two weeks ago. Today, while pulling some data from my reports on the Service, I noticed that every report was again highlighting Retain filters and when I would navigate away from the report and return, it was in fact retaining filters. 

Let me clarify: I turned this feature off in each dataset and completed a republish. It is still retaining filters.

How can I end this madness?

[gooranga1]

Hi @kcantor,

Not sure if this will help or not but if you have a non standard visualisation anywhere in your pbix the persistent filters won't work at all. We have a few pbix files and they never get the 'Return to Default' button highlighted. Maybe if you add a non standard visualisation somewhere it would be a (not very nice and even more time consuming) workaround for the time being? 

[kcantor]

Thank for the suggestion @gooranga1 it would be time consuming but Microsoft seems to be leaning towards the delete and republish path. I have a few large datasets that support about 75 reports. That would take several weeks for me to republish all of them with the customizations that have been added to them on the service since they were built. That is a year or two of work, in some cases, that would need to be recreated. 

Does the custom visual need to be on each report page or just one per report?

[gooranga1]

Hi @kcantor,

It seems as long as there is at least one custom visual anywhere in the pbix we don't get the slicers being saved in their previous state and the Reset to Default button never gets highlighted for these pbix reports.

[kcantor]

@gooranga1

I am going to toss one in and see if it will work. Has to be easier than recreating all of those reports.

[kcantor]

@gooranga1

Unfortunatley, this does not solve the problem. I will disable the retaining filters in the original report, which I could do in the data model but does not fix the satelite reports. Even if I navigate to the reports and add a custom visual there, it still tries to retain filters. 

I tried three different custom visuals. Is there one in particular it refuses to work with?

[gooranga1]

Hi @kcantor,

Sorry to hear it's not working. I just checked the pbix files that this works for one has a custom visual called 'Attribute Slicer'.

I just tested a pbix file in development at the moment and I added a mapbox visual which has just altered the functionality of that with filters and it no longer doesn't have persistent filters. A f5 simply resets all the paramters back to original settings.

[kcantor]

@gooranga1

Are you testing this by using save as to create a new report from the original report that was published? My problem stems from the fact that I have a Mothership report with several reports pulled out from that and saved as Satelite reports that are either smaller views or slightly customized views. The Mothership report is able to have the persistent filters removed. It is the Satelite reports that refuse. When I add the custom visual to the Mothership, it does not propegate down to the Satelite report nor does it disable the filter retention.

[gooranga1]

Hi @kcantor,

I see so these are reports that have been copied within the power bi web.

I was under the understanding that once you copy the report in the web app it is essentially a separate entity with no link back to the original report is was copied from. But having looked at some reports we do have set up like this they are still linked in some aspects, but not it seems, in cascading down additions of non standard visuals. Which from your point of view is a bit annoying.

I can't see any quick way to get around this issue.

[kcantor · Accepted solution]

Microsoft rolled out a fix for me this month that may work for others with this issue. If you go to the reports page and click the gear icon for the report you will now see a toggle switch to disable retained filters. Took a while but I am now able to disable these filters on satelite reports. Thanks Microsoft!

[v-shex-msft]

HI @kcantor,

In fact, I test this feature on my side but it seems not works on power bi server.

Users can still edit on reports who turn on persistent filters feature.

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

[kcantor]

@v-shex-msft

My users cannot edit the reports. I am the keeper of the reports. Most of my users are also read only because we have specific filters built into the reports.

This doesn't even seem to be consistent. If I navigate to a report it may or may retain filters depending on the mood of the internet. It should not retain any. I turned that function off and republished all of them.

[kcantor]

Today when I go to the main report page, they are disabled but any pages I have pulled out from the original and saved as a stand alone continue to persist filters. They use the same dataset.

Spoke with Microsoft and it has been pushed up to the product team. So very frustrating trying to convey the issue when they only listen to the part they want to hear.

Any help would be appreciated while I wait to hear back from them. 

[kcantor]

I am able to reproduce this issue with other data models as well.

To reproduce, create a dataset without disabling the feature (as all of my datasets pre date the feature and Microsoft turned it on by default in all of them.), publish to the service, and break several report pages into a new report with the save as feature.  Next go to the dataset and disable the feature and republish. This disables the feature in the original report from the dataset but in ALL of the satellite reports pulled from the same dataset it is still enabled.

Please note that I cannot afford the time investment of recreating every report that was pulled from a larger dataset that was published to the service. The main dataset has about 25 satellite reports with other shared datasets having a minimum of 3 satellite reports.