How to make tooltip appear only on a specific column in a matrix/table - Power BI Desktop

[jos818]

Hi,

I have a matrix built and only want the tooltip to appear when the user hovers only inside the 'Status' column.

The table is at customer level so the contents of the tooltip will show only their information once activated.

Customer_ID	Status	Age	Gender
100001	VIP	46	M
100002	non VIP	34	F
100003	VIP	39	F

Can you assist?

[lhassett]

Hi, I have achieved similar functionality recently by using the new preview feature "On Object Interaction". You first have to enable this under Options and restart power bi desktop.

Be warned though this will change the UI of Power BI Desktop but only for you, not others.

Then create a new page and under canvas settings change the Page Type to Tooltip - this will then present you with an entry area where you can add data to show your tooltip on. This accepts measures and columns as shown below 

Then when you hover over the column/measure specified in a report page it should show your tooltip page

Could this solve your problem?

[dk_dk]

Hi @jos818 ,

I do not think it is possible to do that with a setting. A workaround I found is that you could "cover" the other columns with a transparent text box, and then only hovering over the status column will trigger the tooltip to show.

The downside of this is that you would not be able to click on the values in other columns. and if your data changes and you resize the table you will need to resize the text boxes that cover the columns.


Note the outline of the textboxes. When the cursor is above the other columns, no tooltip shows.

Not a  very elegant solution imo but maybe it works for your use case?

[jos818]

Thank you for the prompt response. Unfortunately the user will need to have the capability to sort on the other columns. How about a slight variation? when the user click onto the cell inside 'Status' column it then navigates to the tooltip page displaying only the associated customer ID information? 

[dk_dk]

If you set it up exactly like the screenshot, then sorting will still work (the column headers are not covered by the textboxes). In fact, the table is sorted by the first column in the screenshot. Filters, slicers, etc... will also properly affect your table visual. The only issue that could come up is if the columns or the table changes its size over time, in which case you need to resize the blocker textboxes to keep blocking the correct area.

The alternative you are proposing is a drillthrough, which can work but first you would need to click on a row in the table to make the selection, and then you would need to either right click and select drilltrhough in the menu, or add a drillthrough navigation button on the page to click on. Also a rather cumbersome solution.

As far as I am aware, there is no way to set up drillthrough with a single click into a table cell.

[jos818 · Accepted solution]

Hi dk_dk, I'd managed to use modern tooltips to get around this. In addition to right click to make the selection the user can simply just hover on the visual to make the selection. by following your method to block the editing portion of the visual makes this ideal. thanks