Month November 2024

Power BI Feature Spotlight: Data Filtering and Modeling

emguyant 1 Comment

Stay ahead of the latest features with a focused look at Power BI’s latest features, their benefits, and use cases. Dive into walkthroughs and tips to enhance your reports.

The Power BI November 2024 update introduced several exciting enhancements and preview features.

I was particularly interested in the new text slicer preview feature and the quick query option for defining measures in DAX query view. Both of these improvements have the potential to enhance data filtering flexibility, simplify workflows, and increase overall efficiency.

The New Text Slicer: Customized Filtering for Power BI

The new text slicer visual preview feature, introduced in the November 2024 Power BI update, is a versatile tool designed to enhance interactivity and filtering based on text input. This feature allows users to enter specific text, making it easier to explore data and quickly find relevant information.

Benefits of the Text Slicer: Improved Usability and Customization

The text slicer offers a user-friendly and adaptable filtering option with straightforward functionality. Its advantages are particularly evident when filtering datasets that contain high-cardinality fields, such as customer names, product IDs, or order numbers.

Additionally, the slicer features customization options that allow us to adjust its design to fit our report. We can set placeholder text to guide users on what input is expected, and its properties enable us to customize the font and color of various elements, ensuring both readability and visual appeal.

Check out this post for a good explanation of the new text slicer’s options and properties: Drumroll please! The new Text slicer is here!

Getting Started with the Text Slicer

After updating to the latest version of Power BI Desktop, you can enable the new feature by navigating to Options and Settings > Options > Preview features and then checking the box next to the Text Slicer visual.

Once enabled, you will find the new slicer in the Build menu, allowing you to add the visual to your report canvas.

After adding the visual to the report canvas, drag the text field from the data model that you want the slicer to filter on into the slicer’s Field property. Then, type your desired text into the slicer’s input box and click the apply icon to filter the results instantly.

Use Cases: Applying the Text Slicer in Reports

Filtering by Product Category – Exploring the basics

My sample dataset includes product sales, with each product assigned to a specific category. We can use the text slicer to filter the data by product category, such as “Laptop.”

After entering and applying the desired input, the text slicer quickly filters the report page to display only the specified product category. Once the filter is applied, clicking the dismiss (“X”) button will remove it and return to the full dataset.

Filtering our dataset using the text filter alongside the product category yields the same results as using the standard slicer. However, unlike the standard slicer, which displays all categories, the text slicer allows users to type and filter to the desired category directly.

This feature is handy when there are numerous categories to choose from, as scrolling through the list can be time-consuming. Additionally, the text slicer does not require users to toggle on a search functionality like the standard dropdown-styled slicer. With the text slicer, users can enter the category, apply the filter, and quickly narrow the report to the relevant sales data.

This application serves as a good introduction to the functionality of the text slicer and provides a useful comparison with the standard slicer.

Filter on Parts of a Product Code – Explore data without a standalone field

The Products table in the dataset contains product codes that have embedded information, such as the product’s color code. The text slicer offers a quick and effective solution for filtering on this embedded information.

For instance, a product code like SM-5933-BK includes the color code “BK,” which signifies the color black. Using a text slicer on the product code field with the input “BK,” we can filter all products linked to the color black without needing a separate product color filtering dimension in the data model.

The text slicer in this scenario helps us better utilize the data in our dataset to analyze sales data.

Removing the need to extract the color code and add extra filtering dimensions to the data model can be beneficial, especially in cases where changes to the data model are not allowed.

Search and Filter Product Review – Analyze long-form text fields

The sample dataset includes a table of product reviews. The text slicer allows us to filter by keywords, enabling exploration and analysis of specific feedback. For instance, entering the keyword “battery” filters the report page to only the reviews that mention battery across all products.

This allows decision-makers to concentrate on relevant reviews, recognize trends, and extract insights regarding common issues or exceptional features.

Since the text slicer is currently a preview feature, I am not prepared to incorporate it into any production reports just yet. However, I find the potential it offers for our reports intriguing. A current limitation of the text slicer is it only allows us to input a single text input, limiting our ability to search a variety of related terms. I look forward to seeing how it develops with the introduction of new properties and functionalities.

DAX Query View Quick Queries: Define new measure

With the November 2024 update, the DAX query view quick queries options were updated and now include a define new measure option. Quick queries boost productivity for common tasks and can be further modified. Adding the ability to define a new measure to the quick queries options will aid in streamlining workflows in Power BI.

This option, available through the context menu of tables and columns, generates a query-scoped DAX measure formula framework, allowing us to modify and execute custom measures with minimal setup.

For instance, the Review Count visual utilizes the implicit count of Review IDs to show the number of reviews for each product category. We can quickly and easily use the Define a new measure option to create our DAX formula syntax to get started creating an explicit summary measure to add to this visual. After customizing the formula for our specific measure, we can view the results and update the data model accordingly.

This simple and clear example demonstrates how quick queries can assist us in starting common tasks. We can easily expand on this foundation to develop more complex calculations and measures to enhance our data model.

To learn more about working with DAX query view, check out the Work with DAX query view documentation.

Wrapping Up

The new text slicer preview feature in the November 2024 Power BI update is an exciting addition. It will be interesting to see how this feature develops over time. Once fully implemented, its ability to provide quick and intuitive filtering will enhance user interactivity, making it a valuable tool for dynamic and user-friendly reporting.

The new “Define a new measure” quick query option in DAX query view is a helpful addition. This feature allows us to quickly create new measures by providing a starting point for the syntax needed to create a query-scoped measure DAX formula.

Power BI updates continually transform how we explore and analyze data, enabling us to create more compelling and interactive reports. By experimenting with the text slicer and other new features, we can gain a better understanding of how to fully utilize them in our reports.

Check out the Power BI November 2024 Feature Summary for more details and updates.

Thank you for reading! Stay curious, and until next time, happy learning.

And, remember, as Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” So, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, practice makes perfect. Continuously experiment, explore, and challenge yourself with real-world scenarios.

If this sparked your curiosity, keep that spark alive and check back frequently. Better yet, be sure not to miss a post by subscribing! With each new post comes an opportunity to learn something new.

Power BI Feature Spotlight: Marker Enhancements

emguyant Leave a comment

Stay ahead of the latest features with a focused look at Power BI’s latest features, their benefits, and use cases. Dive into walkthroughs and tips to enhance your reports.

With each update, Power BI continues to grow its feature set, offering more options to improve how we present our data to our report viewers. The October 2024 update included enhancements to data markers in our line and scatter visuals.

Data markers can easily be overlooked, but they effectively draw the report viewer’s attention to critical data within our visuals. This update introduces new options and flexibility to customize these data point markers within our line and scatter visuals.

In this post, we will examine these new options and their benefits, providing practical examples to demonstrate how to maximize these updates in your Power BI reports.

What’s New with Marker Enhancements

The enhancements to the markers provide us with a broader toolkit to emphasize specific data points and series. The updates allow us to customize markers for individual categories as well as for the entire series, opening up new opportunities to highlight trends, make comparisons, and showcase key insights.

Our markers for line and scatter charts can be customized in two ways.

Categories: When our visual does not include individual series, the Markers dropdown menu shows the categories represented on the x-axis. This feature allows us to adjust the markers for each data point based on its category. We can use this option to highlight specific time periods or product categories within our dataset.

Series: When our visual includes a series legend, the Markers dropdown menu displays the available series. By selecting a series, we can customize the markers for the entire series. This modification enables us to create more cohesive visual indicators that distinguish between different series, rather than relying solely on color differences.

New Formatting & Customization Options

Our line and scatter visuals now include three additional formatting options for our data markers.

Shape: We can modify the shape and size of our markers, and now we can also rotate the shape (with the exception of circle markers) within our line and scatter marker properties. This added feature allows us to create unique shapes for different data series, offering greater variety in representation.

Color: Alongside the new shape properties, we now have improved color options for our markers. We can adjust the transparency of markers on a per-category or per-series basis. This flexibility enables us to present details subtly without overwhelming the visual impact.

Border: Marker borders are a new customization feature that lets us tailor our markers according to our preferences. We can add borders to specific categories, series, or to all markers within the visual. These border options are excellent for adding depth to our visuals and for highlighting specific data points.

Practical Applications: Marker Customization

These new marker customizations offer a wide range of possibilities for enhancing visuals in our Power BI reports. Below is a visual representing Total Sales by Month, showcasing various options for using markers to highlight specific trends and series.

In this example, the marker properties are adjusted for each series to ensure they are visually distinct from one another, not just by color.

The markers for the 2022 and 2023 series are displayed with a transparency level set to 40%. This subtle adjustment allows viewers to see historical data without overshadowing the 2024 data, making it easier to focus on the current year’s trends while still retaining reference to past data when necessary.

For the 2024 series, the markers have a border that matches the line series color and a lighter blue fill. This combination draws attention to each data point, emphasizing it against the more muted markers of the previous years.

Recommendations for Using Markers in Power BI Visuals

With the expanded marker customization options in Power BI, it can be easy to overdo it. To use these enhancements effectively, it’s important to follow some recommended best practices.

Markers are useful tools for emphasizing data; however, overusing or misapplying them can lead to visual clutter, negatively affecting the clarity of our reports. Here are some guidelines for using markers in Power BI visuals:

Use sparingly: Avoid placing markers on every data point unless necessary. Instead, use markers to highlight the most critical data series or points.

Consistency is key: When using markers across multiple visuals in a report, keep the sizes, shapes, and colors consistent. This creates a cohesive visual experience and makes it easier for viewers to interpret data across different visuals.

Accessibility: To ensure our visuals are accessible to all users, choose marker colors, sizes, and shapes that stand out clearly. Do not rely solely on color to differentiate data point markers. Utilizing the new shape rotation and border properties can help make markers more distinguishable.

Transparency and emphasis: Carefully adjust the transparency properties to emphasize certain data points while minimizing visual noise.

Borders for added contrast: Using borders can effectively create contrast between data points. Contrasting border colors can help them stand out, drawing viewers’ attention to the most critical data.

Wrapping Up: Power BI Marker Enhancements

The recent marker enhancement update in Power BI introduces greater customization and flexibility for line and scatter charts. With increased control over marker shapes, transparency, borders, and settings specific to each series, we can better highlight key data points.

While these marker enhancements are beneficial, an additional feature that could improve our marker customization is the ability to apply conditional formatting directly within the marker properties. This would streamline the process of highlighting specific data points that meet certain conditions, eliminating the need for separate DAX measures or other workarounds.

Power BI updates continue to empower us to craft compelling data stories. By experimenting with the new marker options, we can fully leverage the customization capabilities that Power BI provides. For more details and additional updates, check out the Power BI October 2024 Feature Summary.

Thank you for reading! Stay curious, and until next time, happy learning.

And, remember, as Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” So, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, practice makes perfect. Continuously experiment, explore, and challenge yourself with real-world scenarios.

If this sparked your curiosity, keep that spark alive and check back frequently. Better yet, be sure not to miss a post by subscribing! With each new post comes an opportunity to learn something new.