Visual Interactions - Multiple items in hierarchy with the same name

[tomhawley]

This is about how Power BI seems to only partially filter a second visual based on a selection in a first that employs a drillable hierarchy on the axis.

Imagine a data set with a fairly simple hierarchy where at a lower level of the hierarchy items duplicate from other branches, e.g.

L1      A
      /   \
L2   B     C
    / \   / \
L3 D   E D   F

Say there are 10 rows of data in which the L3 column contains value D, where 6 of them have value B in the L2 column and 4 of them contain value C in the L2 column. Semantically, D means something different in the two contexts. My real world example is an org structure where two departments have the same name within two parts of a company. Not uncommon.

Using this hierarchy in the Axis field of a column chart with simple count on the Y axis, it is possible to drill through A > B > D and see a bar representing the 6 rows. It's also possible to drill through A > C > D and see the bar representing the 4 rows. This is all as expected.

However, if I place a Table visual alongside the report, wishing to display some details from the rows of data represented by the bars when they are selected, I will get all 10 rows with L3 value D when I selected either A > B > D or A > C > D. The background work to filter the Table visual based on the selected column in the chart seems to only take into account the filter on the currently displayed lower level of the hierarchy, when in reality this would only be guaranteed to always show only the correct data if it applied filters for all of the higher drill levels.

This is a problem, and I'm struggling to think of an example where this would be the desired behaviour, although I can absolutely see how it's come about. Are there any ways around this, or thoughts on whether this constitutes a bug or not? 

[greggyb]

This is currently by design.

You can only have a single cross filter / cross highlight selection active at a time, and the parent of an item doesn't impact how its filtering affects the rest of the sheet.

Take a look at these ideas, and vote on them to help get visibility to these issues:

Multiple cross filters

Drill down + cross filter

You might appreciate this blog post as well, but it does not offer any solutions.

Edit to a better link for 'Multiple cross filters' above - more votes and under review.