Hide/do not display empty columns in a matrix visual

[bkoblinger]

I have a re-occuring design problem. I have data that is organized in a tall or key-value format, with two key columns. However, some of the values are numbers, whereas others are text. I currently have the data organised like this:

I would like to display the data in a matrix visual, but I end up with a number of empty columns. Note the Comment-Value column contains only nulls.

Is there some way to hide these columns or do this differently?

Is there a more suitable data structure?

(Yes, I could pivot Key2 onto the columns; however, when I define a calculated measure I have to define one for 2018 and one for 2019, etc., and this I would rather avoid, as in reality Key2 takes on far more values).

Thanks!

[v-frfei-msft]

Hi @bkoblinger ,

There is no such an visibility option that supports to conditionally hide/show column in Matrix. You can come up a new idea about that and add your comments there to improve Power BI and make this feature coming sooner.

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas

Regards,

Frank

[bkoblinger · Accepted solution]

Hi @Frank,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I did find one work around that will satisfy my needs. It means the comments are shown on the rows, but it looks OK for my need.

I have accomplished this by duplicating the text field(Comment) for Key1, and putting the Comment on the row, along with Key1, as shown in the example below.