Skip to main content

Power BI

Completed

Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Vote (85) Share
Brett's profile image

Brett on 20 Feb 2020 03:14:54

AAS recently implemented Calculation Groups with big fanfare.

However any SSAS / AAS Cube that has *any* users using Power BI in Live Connect mode cannot add this feature to their cube. I would be willing to bet this is > 95% of all Microsofts Cube customers.

The problem is that any graphical visual (i.e. not table/matrix/card) will not honour *any* format string (static or dynamic).

This means that any simple measure that shows a % will show as a decimal 0.01 instead of 1%.

This is such a jarring issue for users it means that we cannot use the great new feature because Power BI has only allowed Matrix and Table to honour the Format String as defined in the model

I've contacted the support team and I'm told that the dev team are only expected to start working on this during this summer with no ETA.

A real shame that Microsoft's flagship reporting tool cannot work with Microsoft's flagship OLAP database until then. Our users were looking forward to reducing the number of measures to 0.2 of what they were (sorry, that should be 20%, couldn't resist :) )

Administrator on 06 Dec 2021 18:29:56

This has been fixed.

Comments (22)
Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Vijaya Kabali on 21 Sep 2020 21:02:13

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Any status on this?

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Josh Ash on 06 Jul 2020 00:16:35

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Summer is here, is it not? Could we please get an update?

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 06 Jul 2020 00:16:27

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Having the same issue, do we have a view on when "Summer" is?

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Xander Gerreman on 06 Jul 2020 00:15:48

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Great you guys are working on this Will. Is there any indication on when this is expected to be fixed?

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Jake Burns on 06 Jul 2020 00:14:57

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Thanks Will for your attention to this - we were excited to implement for one of our longest-standing clients, but this is causing a lot of issues (that took me a lot of searching to find out that I wasn't the only one. Thanks to the author of this thread.

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Ryan Premak on 06 Jul 2020 00:13:26

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Can we get an update on when this issue will be fixed? Thanks!

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

zz zz on 06 Jul 2020 00:13:14

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Hi, any ETA? Hope it comes to SSAS and PBI Report Server, we really need it, such a shame it makes all the programmers effort unused ...

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Ian Roberts on 06 Jul 2020 00:11:58

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Any update on an ETA for this at all?

Just to add to the comments below, I can confirm that removing any formatstrings from all calculation groups does indeed get us back to the base formatting of the selected measure at least.

I've found as well though that using a FORMAT () within the formula for a Calculation Item does carry through correctly which has got me to a point at least where I can make use of Calculation Groups, though still not quite ideal.

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

Josh Ash on 06 Jul 2020 00:11:21

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Another issue is that exporting data from a matrix that uses a Calculation Group gives an empty file. Could you also please address this issue?
Thanks!

Brett's profile image Profile Picture

zz zz on 06 Jul 2020 00:09:32

RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)

Hi,
Thanks, good to know it is at least started!

If I may suggest something, please please aim to get it out for the next PBIRS which should be out in May - it really limits the usefulness of the best new feature of SSAS2019.

If it is not done in May, we would move to september which in practice would be october, way too late!

Thanks again!

Martin