Share your thoughts on the new On-Object Interaction feature (preview)

[RosieL]

Hit Reply to tell us what you think about the new On-Object Interaction feature so we can continue to improve.

For example:

• What changes would you like to see?
• If you turned off the preview switch, why?
• Any suggestions for addititional settings or capabilities?

Thanks,

-Power BI team

To read more about the feature, see the announcement in the Power BI Product Blog or our documentation on how to Use on-object interaction

FAQs:

• Q: How can I open multiple panes at once?
  • A: You can CTRL + click or right click on the unselected pane you wish to open and choose "Open in new pane"
• Q: Where did aggregations move to?
  • A: It's still on right click of a field, or you can use the new flyout aggregations dropdown while choosing or swapping a field.
• Q: Where did drillthrough and tooltip page setup move to?
  • A: Drillthrough is now in the page settings of the format pane under Page Information > Page type > Drillthrough or Tooltip.

[jimbob2285]

It feels like the feedback can be split into two distinct areas:

1) The functionality of the new feature

2) The original functionality that's been removed while it's turned on

Turning on the new feature shoud retain all the original functionality as well, so that it adds to the user experience, rather than just changing it... It seems that's why most people are turning it off as fast they're turning it on, without truely giving it a chance, because they prefer the old way... Which is quite normal... You might try mayo on your chips, but you'd still want a bit of ketchup.. at least the first few times

[GaryC]

Knowing how users resist change, I did give it what I consider a decent try. I fought with it several days, forcing myself to explore and work with the new interface. In the end, I prefer the more efficient option (for me) of having all my desired panes open at once.

[visheshjain]

Hi @RosieL,

Been playing with the On-object Interaction for a while now and it breaks my heart to say that I am not a fan of the feature so far.

Having worked with PBI for over 6 years now, we have gotten used to the formatting pane being on the side and searching things in the pane itself.

I'd prefer having the flexibility to change the colors of the every data point, more or less like you can change the color of every cell in Excel.

Fomatting the table visual and matrix visual, still manages to be the most time consuming part of designing a dashboard.

Hoping to see the changes soon.

Thank you!

Vishesh Jain

[nelsonmartins]

I like it... just one thing that i dont like is that options on the side of the object (like choose graphic) it stay over (in front) the DAX formula box when when you expand it. Probably a bug that will be fix... but ya just telling ;).... but i like it 

[cmcquaid]

After trying to work for hours with the position of the new visualization pane I turned it off. I'm fine with the panes icons in a veritical column, but build visualiztions and format should also stay visible as an icon to select on the right with the other icon selections, not next to the visualizations moving around as you add and re-size visualizations and trying to find it everytime I need it - wastes a lot time, easier to just go to the right and click on it.

[hmaldo]

I really do not like this change.  There are some nice things about it, but not being able to easily see the visual type when I click on an object like before is not great.  I also don't like the "on object" approach to adding/changing data in a visual.  It is going to take me forever to do what was quick to do before.  Please make this OPTIONAL and do not make it something that will be forced after preview.

[GaryC]

I agree with making the fetaure OPTIONAL. Give users the choice.

[TrevorC]

Very interesting.

I really like that I can edit the formatting of items in a visual while on the visual. Very convenient.

Not sure if these were mentioned but I would like to see the following:

• A quicker way to minimize the panes. Currently, I have to right click then select a choice. I think that the icons similar to those used on an application would work well for this.
• When a visual is selected on the canvas then the type should be highlighted in the ribbon.

Thank you for all the cool features that you folks keep adding.

[TrevorC]

One thing I just noticed is that it is more difficult to compare the configurations of differrent visuals with. I think the best aproach is to have the panes similar to the way they were and have the object editing functionality. 

I find the previous layout mor eintuitive. 

[gcn]

I have the same feeling. Maybe it will be a better idea to store user preferences on show/hide panes and to have a behavior similar to the slicers where you don't need ctrl for multiple selection. It was frustrating when selecting one pane knocked down another pane.  

[Zx2000]

After a week with this feature - i dont like it. Can't see longer names when adding to fields. Nope! I wish an option for a 2nd screen and darkmode. This feature looks and feels like made by a person who has no experience with Power BI and UI design

[jlimon]

I have disabled it after testing it. I don't think "on-object interaction" should be a mandatory option and the user should be allowed to choose the current form or this new one.

[WilliamHF]

There's been a lot of negativity about this feature, and I don't disagree that yes, we need to be able to view simultaneous panes on the side just like before if we want to.

HOWEVER, let's not throw everything out the window. Much has been said about needing extra mouse clicks, needing to move the mouse further, etc. But some things are more efficient and intuitive with this feature.

Some examples:

• You are working on a graph and want to change the title. Without moving the mouse across the page, you click on the title and change it. Bingo! Intuitive and fast.
• You have the format pane open, and are working on various parts of a graph. As you click the section on the graph you want to work on (axis, labels, colors) the format pane zips right to that section. This works as you move to other graphs as well.
• You have a graph and want to turn on data labels. Without leaving the graph, you hit the paintbrush and turn them on. While you're at it you can turn off the Y-axis as well. No scrolling on the format pane to find the on/off toggles. Just a few fast checkboxes. Sweet!

So, while I agree with the need to return the panes, allowing us to drag and drop measures as before if we wish to, I would be sad to see some of these design elements go. PowerBI is notoriously less customizable than Excel, and part of that involves not being able to select individual objects on the graph. While this still doesn't allow us to, say, format a single data label in a specific color like you can in Excel, it's at least a step in the right direction.

I think On-Object has it's flaws and will need further tweaking, but that's the point of beta. The PowerBI team may not have hit a homer on the first swing, but neither have they struck out.

William

[kahnailee]

Check out Guy in a Cube on YouTube, he runs through how to get the panes back to the former layout while still utlizing the new feature.

https://youtu.be/xL6DvHYjBVs

[Janos]

Doesn't seem to work for the data pane. At least I can't make it show my measures already selected, or drop new ones in

[TrevorC]

THANK YOU!!!! Right click on the icon for a pane that you are NOT on and select "Open in new pane". 

[WilliamHF]

Thanks, that was super helpful! I didn't know about the right-click option either while in edit mode. Excellent.

[Dom-Perthyn]

One major issue with the "open in new pane" to show multiple panes is when you want to use a new pane from the menu it is a pain!  It then replaces all the mutiple open panes with the new one.  Not tested enough really

[BiDevelopers]

I run a BI development team with about fifteen developers, and they all agree that the new feature makes Power Bi feel more amateur and less geared towards professionals.
Pro devs use muscle memory of the eye and the hand/mouse to gain efficiency.  
Previously all work was done in the menus on the right, and after a learning curve, the menus item locations could be memorized and hand and eye movement was minimized. This applied to all visuals, so no matter where the visual is, the developer knew where to find the format options. 

Now the visual menu can be anywhere on the screen, and some of the options are still in the legacy many on the right.

Devs now have to search the screen with their eyes and mouse to find the tiny icon that could be anywhere on the screen and is in a different location for every visual. My team absolutely hates having to click all over the screen to accomplish what used to be in one menu on the right. 
Not only that, we tested dozens of workflows, and every single one required more clicks. Sometimes up to triple the clicks for the same action. 
There are a plethora of ideas from the community about improving Power Bi, but no one from the community was asking for half baked, partially developed on object interaction features. Really don't understand the motivation here - it breaks all previous training materials, makes the format feature far less efficient, and eliminated the ability to memorize where a feature will show up on the screen. 

[cassidy]

Perfect assessment.  There seems to be a lack of consideration for the volume of report building being done, we don't need to get "cutesy" with it this far into the programs development.  Keep it predictable and logical.

[jimbob2285]

Hi

I've turned this feature on about 10 minutes ago and I've litterally just tunred it off again... I think it's a great feature and I fully support enhancing the report creation/editing experience in the Power BI desktop, but with the fetaure turned on some of the older functionality has dissapeared, the new Format tab, used to becalled Visualizations and you could flick between Format and Build... it looks like the build features are now all on-object

You're giving but also taking away... i thought the Microsoft model was to offer mutiple ways to acheive the same thing!

If you're goign to make some changes, then add more formatting options to visuals, allow drill through from multi-row cards, add stacked and clustered charts... there's lots of improvements needed to the actual functionality of the visuals before you start changing where we make changes

Thanks

Jim