Mystery Visualization in PBIX file. How do I tell what it is?

[EvanYates]

I have inherited a PBIX file from a staff member who has left the company. It has some good functionality.

One report page has a visualization that does not "light-up" a Visualization type icon on the Visualization pane.

It looks like some sort of modified Matrix, but when I click on it, the "Matrix" type icon does not light up.

Does that mean it is a Custom Visual that I haven't downloaded to my Dekstop environment?
How do I tell what type of visual it is? If it is Custom, should my Desktop automatically identify it and download the Custom Visual file?
Has anyone else managed to figure out a "mystery" visual in a PBIX authored by someone else?

[KNP]

Hi Evan,

I've not come across this problem but I had a thought.

What happens if you select the visual in question, change it to something else and then push Ctrl Z to change it back?

Regards,

Kim

[EvanYates]

Hi Kim

I can change to something else (i.e. Bar chart) ok, but when I hit Ctrl-Z to change it back, it returns to "No viualization icons highlighted".  It remains a mystery...  

Very strange...

Thanks

Evan

[KNP]

Another possible debugging step, Save As PBIT, change extension to .zip, open the zip and explore the Report folder. If there is a custom visual, it should show in the CustomVisuals folder.

[EvanYates]

Thanks KNP

I tried this and there were two custom visual entries in the folder. "Sunburst" and "Paypal KPI Donut".
The mystery visual is neither of those.
It looks like some variation on a Matrix, but it doesn't light up the "Matrix" icon when it is selected.

Very strange...

Thanks

Evan

[KNP]

That is odd. 

Do you see any differences (either visually or interaction behaviour) when you change the visual to the normal matrix?

[EvanYates]

Not really. The conditional formatting on one column disappears and the background colours change, but that is about all that happens from an eyeball point of view.
By updating the look-and-feel aspects of the standard matrix visual, I can get it looking pretty much as it does with the mystery visual, but I can't explain why the orignal developer thought a standard matrix visualisation wasn't the correct choice for what he wanted to achieve..

[v-angzheng-msft]

Hi, @EvanYates 

Thank you for your feedback. Could you please consdier sharing a sample file without any sesentive information for further discussion? It would be a great help.

[v-angzheng-msft]

Hi, @EvanYates 

An easy way to determine whether a visual object is a custom visual object is to check the Visualization type icon on the Visualization pane. When you click on the visual object, the object type will light up in the Visualization pane as mentioned above.

The custom visual object will be displayed below the default visual object, and the type of visual object will be displayed when the mouse is moved over the visual object.

When accepting a file with a custom visual object, the visual object has been imported into your file environment, and you can reuse it, but only for the current file. To create a new PBIX file, you need to re-import the visual object.

To import custom visual objects, you can import them locally or click the three-point menu in the Visualization pane to search for visual objects.

There is another way to see more information, change the name of the PBIX file to a ZIP file to view the compressed file information.

For reference:

https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps?product=power-bi-visuals

Hope this helps

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Zeon Zheng
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[EvanYates]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately it does not help. The whole issue is that NOTHING lights up in the Visualiazations pane to tell me what type of visual is selected.

Here is an annotated screenshot of the situation in Power BI Desktop

As I said, it looks like some variation on a Matrix, but the Matrix icon is not "lit".

Thanks

Evan