Adjusting PowerBI Desktop layout

[decarsul]

Good day all,

Recently starting to make the switch from power query / power pivot to powerbi desktop.

Now, one thing that has been really holding me back is the way powerbi desktop looks when working with the power pivot view.

In the excel variant there is a clear color distinction between non and calculated columns, same for creating measures, you have a seperate 'area' for that. PowerBI desktop just has everything open all the time.

So my question is, is there any way to make powerbi desktop less cluttered? so i can keep my measures together, know visually (colored) which columns are calculated and which are not? 

[Icey]

Hi @decarsul ,

Please let us know if the replies above are helpful.

If they are, please always accept the replies making sense as solution to your question so that people who may have the same question can get the solution directly.

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Icey

[PaulDBrown · Accepted solution]

@decarsul 

There is a visual clue for calculated columns: they all have an icon by the name of the field:

Nevertheless, to keep things tidier, I would suggest:

1) As has been suggested for your measures, create measure tables to group the measures by categories (if necessary)

2) For calculated columns, create folders within each table to host the calculated columns. Label the folder accordingly - if you add a "1" at the start of the folder name, the folder itself will appear at the top of the list within the table.

To create a folder within a table, go to the modeling view and select the calculated column. Under properties, enter a name for the folder in "Display Folder". The folder will be created with the calculated column within:

Once the folder is created, you can add more fields by selecting and dragging into the folder:

When you go back to the field view, you will see the folder hosting the fields you have included, which you can collapse if need be:

[decarsul]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

They are nice and make things a bit more workable, but i have found that for me it is really a structural problem. Why would we need to apply workarounds, creating dummy folders or dummy tables just to keep things tidy?

Oh well, hopefully someone or maybe MS will create a layout modpack or something that does offer these functions.

[rajend12]

Can you try the below article:

https://exceleratorbi.com.au/measure-tables-in-power-bi/

Thanks,

Deepanraj

[decarsul]

That was already mentioned in an earlier response. thanks tho.

[CNENFRNL]

Hi, @decarsul , it's a good practice to seperate measures from tables by creating an empty table in the first place dedicated to measures only.

You may want to refer to this article for details.

https://exceleratorbi.com.au/measure-tables-in-power-bi/

[decarsul]

Thank you for that suggestion, ill look that up.

But that only 'solves' half my question.

How about the visual distinction between calculated and non calculated columns?

[CNENFRNL]

@decarsul , as to calculated column, I'd like to call it "legacy of Excel"; I personally avoid creating it whenever possible considering Power BI runs on in-memory columnar database. Superfluous calculated columns comsume pretty much memory.

It seems most users don't distinguish calculated columns from native ones in a particular way.

[decarsul]

@CNENFRNL that makes sence, but for someone being given an report to optimize, it would be very handy to see what columns need to be checked. And if its a report with 100's of columns, that become tedious. As you said, loading that in memory makes load times slow, having to pass by them individually you'll have loading times, and thus delays, to see how they are actually made.

So even tho i agree to what you're saying, praktice teaches us different. And as such would love to find a way to easily mark those columns in a visual way.

[CNENFRNL]

@decarsul , AFAIK, I'm afraid Power BI so far doesn't feature any remarkable visual functionality to distinguish them except for small icons.

A possible workaround is to create subfolders in a table in the Model view, where all calculated columns can be seated.