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Define default selection for a column in the model

Vote (75)

Marco Russo on 21 Jul 2020 16:13:16

Create a property that defines the default selection for a column in a table. It is very needed in Calculation Groups, but all the tables/columns of a model could benefit.
If that column is not referenced in the report, it should be filtered by default.
Ideally, the default is defined by a DAX expression, so that it could be adapted to the user connected to a data model dynamically.
It is acceptable that there should be a single selection, it is not necessary to support multiple selections for this feature.
If a slicer is applied to a report, it should provide the default selection, even though the user can make a different choice. This is the only change required to the report user interface layer of Power BI.
This feature should be similar to the "default member" property in a multidimensional model.

Comments (7)

Comments (7)

b00f732b 90eb-ea11-a817-000d3a579c38 on 31 Aug 2020 14:09:41

RE: Define default selection for a column in the model

This is a great idea -- and I applaud all the Power BI Product Team's efforts to make Power BI easier to use - they will pay off in market share and leadership in the analytics space. As more students look to corporations to gain new skills, many will gravitate to tools that are easier to learn. And small businesses need to take a very hard look at the TCO of Power BI - for us it meant coming "back to the garden" with an Azure / Windows VM, rolling out Power BI and then far more training than expected. The learning curve is unnecessarily steep and repetitive tasks such as Marco is pointing out should be high on the list for improving. Consider how many students are looking to corporations like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tableau for skills training - this is a huge opportunity for Power BI and it fits with Microsoft's ethos of empowering people.