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Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

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on 03 Dec 2015 03:57:02

This idea is to add unstructured text search/analysis to the Q&A module in PowerBI. This will enable users to search for keywords and/or phrases in the text column through the Q&A search field, so that I could do more advanced filtering on non-numeric data.

If the dataset contains a column with unstructured text (e.g. DescriptionText), I want to search for and/or filter on keywords in this column. Sample value for DescriptionText column: "Conceptual study for California solar power plant 2013". I want to use PowerBI Q&A to search for (and count) items that contain California in the DescriptionText column. This is similar to facets works in search engines.

Example query: COUNT Items WHERE DescriptionText CONTAINS California AND "solar power" AND 2013

Ref.1) Community discussion thread: http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Service/Unstructured-text-search-in-Power-BI-Q-amp-A/m-p/11203#M4314
Ref.2) Faceted search in Apache Solr: http://lucidworks.com/blog/2009/09/02/faceted-search-with-solr/

Comments (10)
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Bharat on 16 Aug 2020 04:20:30

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Is there any way to search multiple keywords in one phrase separated by "or"?

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Brian on 16 Aug 2020 04:01:05

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

crickets....?

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Javi Gonzalez on 16 Aug 2020 03:59:22

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Despite working with "picklisted" fields in our data sources, several times we've got relevant and even critical data in description / comments / remarks fields.

Being able to use the Q&A feature to look for tags / keywords within those fields will be highly useful and provide Power BI with a feature that some of its competitors have already integrated.

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Anonymous on 16 Aug 2020 03:58:25

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Any updates on how to search keywords in an unstructured text field?

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Power BI User on 16 Aug 2020 03:55:51

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

The feature has been implemented. You can ask questions with filters like

... where FIELD contains/starts with "something"

Note that the search string needs to be in quotes though.

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Power BI User on 16 Aug 2020 03:55:40

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Hello All ,

Any body has idea what's the status of implementation of this idea ? I am looking for this feature as it will help our users to search instead of exporting the table in case the row limit is huge.

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Pey Geldenhuys on 16 Aug 2020 03:55:02

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Please MS - this is a bloody good idea!

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Pey Geldenhuys on 16 Aug 2020 03:55:02

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Even if its as simple as "COUNT items where FIELD contains "Something"

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Kris Ruyeras on 16 Aug 2020 03:54:06

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

Wonder if this have been implemented yet on the latest release? This is huge as it would eliminate the need of creating PHP search engine within internal data for descriptiontext.

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Power BI User on 16 Aug 2020 03:54:04

RE: Unstructured text search/analysis in Q&A

great idea