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List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

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Eddy De Maerschalck on 28 Feb 2017 15:58:03

How can I get a documentation which mentions which field is used on a visual? or in a calculation of a column or measure?
With DAX studio we can make a list of calculated fields and measures. And with a little programming we can see which field as source for another calculated field or measure.
I know that by clicking on a visual the involved dataset will be highlighted into yellow. If I expand it, I see data fields used (which is selected) in this visual.To do this manually I'll need to click on each visual, manually make a note of every field used, cliick on the next visual, manually make a note of fields used...>> iterate. That'll take ages.
Main purpose is to eliminate all unneccessary fields and ... documentation!

Comments (20)
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Anthony MInero on 05 Jul 2020 23:27:02

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

agree, this is a very manual process as it stands right now. This would also help with new hires that need to be trained on reporting. Would give a good documentation of how the report is built.

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Chris99 on 05 Jul 2020 23:20:38

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

Fortunately Reza Rad also thought this would be very useful. Check out http://radacad.com/power-bi-helper

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Sunildutt Nidamarthi on 05 Jul 2020 23:19:14

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

This is a very grand feature to be available in Power BI service/desktop. It helps to identify the unused attributes and leverages the Power BI model simplification.

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Ian Maddrell on 05 Jul 2020 23:16:15

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

I think this would be a great idea

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Sasha Marsee Holder on 05 Jul 2020 23:15:41

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

Yes!!!! Similar to Trace Precedents in Excel.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:12:08

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

This would be very useful to keep file sizes down be excluding unneeded columns from queries

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Omer on 05 Jul 2020 22:59:00

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

'+ ability to search for reused measures/calculated columns/fields to find where they have been used. This will be especially useful when you change a measure and want to see what effects it has taken on other measures. Same for fields and cal. columns.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:57:20

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

Dynamic management views (DMV) for Power BI workbooks. This could allow us to quickly find every location where a column was used as a filter and update the filter values. The only way to do this now is by manually checking every chart object on every tab in every workbook. If I have an average of 8 visuals per tab, 6 tabs per workbook, and 10 workbooks, that's 8 * 6 * 10 = 480 chart objects to check manually. :(

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Jonathan McLean on 05 Jul 2020 22:53:17

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

Please do this. I am given a PowerBI workbook with half a dozen pages and a dozen tables. I need to replicate the underlying data. Knowing which visuals use which tables will go a long way toward helping me understand how to build the underlying tables.

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Joviee on 05 Jul 2020 22:47:23

RE: List of used fields in visuals (and in calculated fields and measures)

yes! Please look into this request! i have many reports with so many visuals on so many pages, i wanted to do housekeeping to eliminate unused measures or fields, its going to take me ages to do that! or is there any work around solution for this??