Power BI
Needs VotesAdd an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
Alex Barbeau on 19 Nov 2016 06:05:15
When working and developing Power BI Desktop models, and by extension datasets on the service, there are many columns with numeric values that should not be aggregated. These include a year in a date table, a item number in a products table, and so on. Having to scroll through the entire model to set these as "Do Not Summarize" is tedious and unproductive, and accordingly having one place to change this setting would save time when starting a new model.
This would also halt the use of implicit measures, enabling DAX measures as the only method of aggregation, which greatly enhances the data modeling options.
This could go into the Options menu, and preferably is a Global setting, but could also work as a Current File setting.
- Comments (28)
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
Agreed, please prove an option to disable by default.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
This, please. The time spent (and wrist strain caused by) disabling summarization on columns is a major source of waste when working in Power BI without a default toggle or mass reassignment option.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
I could not agree more. It should be a toggle.Very few professionals use implicit columns unless it is just for testing.The amount of time wasted on this is a huge bore. All that should be visible to the user should be measures everything else should be hidden.Furthermore it would be very easy to implement.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
I fully agree. Default summarization makes me hesitate to start with Power Bi. Crystal Reports might not be so flashy but at least allows for clean data extraction.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
Please, Please do this. I'm wasting my time having to go through all the fields and manually do this.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
Couldn't agree more with Kevin H. I, too, find it tedious and I also agree that DAX measures ought to be used for all summarizations.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
Agree. It is considered a best practice to create explicit DAX measures for all summarizing; and I never want numeric columns in dimension tables to be summarized.
So, I want an option to have the "Default Summarization" always default to 'Don't summarize'.
And, I agree that it should in the "Options" menu, either at the 'GLOBAL' level or the 'CURRENT FILE' level.
RE: Add an option to force all table columns to the "Do Not Summarize" Default Summarization option
This would be a welcome addition! One major use case would be any/all survey data. Any decent size survey will have dozens of columns that today require the laborious 1-by-1 Do-not-summarize change. Given many survey data providers give their data in Excel, other options I've used, such as leveraging SQL or SSAS are not realistic for such customers. BUT, if it become a 2 minute job to pull together a PBI view of a survey spreadsheet's data, this would help adoption of PBI.