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Change column labels/names in the visual

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Mario Nelaj on 14 Feb 2017 04:45:43

It would be great if we could change columns labels/names in the standard visuals (Table & Matrixes mainly). In our company we have a data warehouse build to support the PowerBI tabular model with the data. The field names in the data model are not the most intuitive to our PowerBI End User. It could be great if we could change the way the field labels are shown in our tables to be more intuitive and meaningful without needing to change the field names in the data model.

Administrator on 06 Jul 2017 13:05:17

With today's release, you can now rename any field within a chart or table! Learn more in our blog post: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/blog/power-bi-desktop-july-feature-summary-2/#rename

Comments (149)
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7d70236e 960a-4886-bc06-93d147395e6d on 05 Jul 2020 22:12:07

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

Same thing for analysis services sources used in direct connection mode.

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1e8f1ba7 3149-46fa-ae5a-668d7016c8e6 on 05 Jul 2020 22:11:02

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

Definitely useful feature - please enable it. Currently with AS Tabular we have to create seperate "friendly name" columns. The same happens if we connect live to a on prem SQL db etc..

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ca64d339 3581-492f-b87b-d0b4ed8394d3 on 05 Jul 2020 22:10:52

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

You can rename them in Power BI but not Power View. Unfortunately this simple feature is a show-stopper for user adoption of Power View.
There is a connect article for this too:
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/778361/power-view-rename-fields

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f6513f52 36c9-4f7f-b9ac-aa30ee6e99b7 on 05 Jul 2020 22:06:54

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

I had this problem with dates. I am fairly new to Power BI and was shocked when i couldn't change field in a matrix to be a Month/Year instead of a date field.

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09d797cb 44ea-460d-8a50-65695835598f on 05 Jul 2020 22:06:40

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

I was just wondering if this would be a useful idea. So when I change the field to be the average or count it adds this to the name that is shown on the graph.

So I think being able to edit these field names would be a good feature to have.

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44f6be38 3647-41c8-a9b3-d05c6f27803e on 05 Jul 2020 22:05:28

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

To provide further detail: when using an oData feed the schema names for fields are shown as uneditable labels for charts and tables. This is non-sense to most users. I.e. instead of seeing "First Name" as a label, they end up seeing "txtFName". We really need to either pull the display name for the field or make this editable.

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b2679a4b 7ed2-4226-90f0-5de99a9c7efc on 05 Jul 2020 22:04:21

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

Ability to edit the column headers on tables - like you can with the title. this is especially for the sum or count columns e.g. Currently displays Count of x, instead you could edit to show Total

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73f6016f fd0a-4b42-a669-bf8027ed30bb on 05 Jul 2020 22:03:27

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

It should be possible to change the display name of fields instead of just showing the raw column name from the dataset.

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1cfd3412 e1a7-45e1-854e-092b70204ca4 on 05 Jul 2020 21:58:24

RE: Change column labels/names in the visual

Scenario: User creates a new Power View report. The field list contains attributes with descriptive but very long names. The names are so long that the user can only fit 3-4 columns in a table or matrix. User cannot edit to shorten column names so more columns can fit on the page.

As Is: Users cannot edit column names without modifying underlying source (query or model).
To Be: User can modify column names so columns with long names need not be changed in source where longer names are more appropriate.