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)
RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)
One more note, if need be, you could do it in two phases:
Phase 1: don't break what was working:
In this phase, graphic visuals would just work as they did before, honoring the original format string of their measure even if there are calculation groups with custom format strings in the model. At least this way we could use the calc groups without breaking what is already in production. This should be relatively easy, and is actually fixing what clearly is a bug.
Phase 2: full support
properly update the graphic visuals to honor the custom calc groups string formatting as it should be.
If phase1 could arrive by May (or earlier, just please include it in the next PBIRS) it would be great, while you complete phase2 which I understand can alas be more complex.
Just my thoughts, but that would make us quite happier.
Thanks
Martin
RE: Format Strings don't work on a SSAS Model with Calculation Group(s)
Hi folks,
I have the same issue here, and I have discovered something that might help in the struggle.
The thing is, in my case, I find the following:
When Calc groups are added to the model, yes, the measures become variant. But this is not an issue by itself!...
If all FormatStringExpression of all Calculation Items are empty, then the behaviour of measures is unchanged (at least in my testings) - the usual format strings of normal measures are properly shown in graphs, business as usual, all happy
If afterwards, I add just one FormatStringExpression to ANY of the Calculation Items, (including SELECTEDMEASUREFORMATSTRING () or any other), then the bug arises and graphs in PowerBI do not respect their source formatting (matrix is OK as you have reported)
So in my case, it looks that the problem does not come from just 1500, or from adding calculation groups, but from adding a single FormatStringExpression to the model.
Therefore, in my case so far I am able to add Calculation Groups and Items without and issue to an existing model (phew!), but not use the custom format feature.
I hope this helps shed some light, and yes, Microsoft should solve this!