Sankey Chart 3.0.3 Bug - Clicking on a Source or Destination category "locks" the category in place

[mostvp123]

The custom Sankey Chart visual (version 3.0.3) is awesome, but there is a pretty serious bug which really limits its use as a filter. Right now, if a full source or destination is selected by clicking on the vertical "lines/rectangles" themselves next to each source/destination, (for example, to display the contents of this source/destination in a separate detail table) the source/destination will "Lock" in place. If the "weight" value of the links changes due to an external filter being applied to the dataset, the visual becomes unreadable. Example below, I've clicked on the "in forecast" source:

Then I've changed my external filter combination, and this is the result, as you can see the "in forecast" category is now overlapped by other categories and is no longer visible:

The only way to "undo" this "locking" is to delete the visual and start again (from what I can see...) If I do this, the visual displays as expected with the new filter criteria:

Same filter selection, same data. Only difference is I didn't click on the "In forecast" source first.... This happens whether I deselect my initial selection or not. Bookmarks linked to original formatting do not seem to reset the issue either.

Note this is different to clicking on the links themselves - this does not seem to cause the issue.

I suspect the issue is related to the fact that you can click and drag sources/destinations to reorder them to where you want to. They are then "locked" in place to where you dropped them (there is no way/doesn't seem to be a way to reset to "auto ordering" here either). I'm assuming clicking on the source/destination is trigerring this behavior... Stakeholders want a quick way to see what makes up the links for each source/destination by clicking on them and filtering other tables in the dashboard. How can we fix this issue?

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @mostvp123,

May I know how you apply the external filters to the chart? If you set the In Forecast link’s color to an apparent one, will it look better?

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun

[mostvp123]

@v-cazheng-msft I use a measure in the "Weight" field of the Sankey visual. Then I am able to filter my visual by any external dimensions that affect the dataset the measure is based on. Like filtering by region, date range etc. You would also be able to filter without a measure - i.e. if in the Source/Destination dataset, there was additional columns containing the Region, I would be able to use this column as a filter. But a measure is far more flexible.

The color is not really the issue. Regardless of the color you pick, the source/destination will still appear underneath or over other links once the issue occurs making things unreadable (it locks in the place you clicked it on). I only showed the example for the "in forecast" source above - if you start to click on other source / destination groups, the issue gets even worse as all the source/destinations will get "locked". Example below: after clicking on a few source/destination groups:

They now almost all overlap. If I don't click on any source/destination groups first, this is what I get for the same selection:

It seems like we need an additional settings on this chart to define how the order is determined i.e. "Auto" ordering (which right now seems to be based on the "source" weight), "Manual" ordering (click and drag - this seems to be triggered by clicking on the source/destinations too, and I suspect this is why the issue is occuring), or ordering based on the column order of the source/destination fields themselves (this would be a great upgrade to the visual too).

Here is what I mean by the "click and drag" ordering that can be done now:

This is cool, and I can see the use-case if one wants to take a particular screenshot - but this order is now "locked" and will persist. It cannot be reset to automatic in any way that I can see, unless the visual is deleted and rebuilt.

[mostvp123]

@v-cazheng-msft is there any update on the status of this bug? It really limits the useability of this visual. Our stakeholders rely on this tool on a daily basis. Thank you 🙂

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @mostvp123,

Sorry for the delay. Issue has been reported internally(ICM 311922863). Will sync here once there is any update. Thanks for your understanding!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @mostvp123,

According to the reply from the product group, Sankey visual saves the positions of all elements in the visual when you drag and drop the nodes of it. If you apply a filter, it leads to a mismatch of saved coordinates and new items. They will fix this issue but the expected available time would be the fourth Quarter of the year for any change can break existing user reports. Please be patient for the fix. Thanks for your understanding!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun

[mostvp123]

@v-cazheng-msft thanks so much for the update! I look forward to the fix. This will really increase the value of this visual!!

[BD09]

@v-cazheng-msft Any update here? I'd like to use Sankey, but need the ability to set the relative sorting of the nodes... but have the visual appropriately move them so that they don't overlap after setting the sort order. 

Thanks again for addressing the issue!