How to add anchor tag to web URL column?

[SamTrexler]

Is it possible to control how a Web URL column is handled by the browser?

For example, we would like to specify the URL as an HREF in an anchor tag, and add "target=..." to control whether it is displayed in the same tab, a new tab, etc.

This is important for the reports which will be embedded in our application. When clicking the Web URL column, it is now opening the link in the Service in another browser tab. We need to keep the new report page within our application, preferably in the same iframe where the link was pressed.

I see several ideas posted requesting the ability to add tags to the Web URL - in general, not just for embedding - but not much else. And nothing much comes up in a Google search, either. Does anyone have a solution for this?

Thanks in advnace,

Sam

[GilbertQ]

Hi there, could you not move between pages within your report using Bookmarks or Drill Through options?

[SamTrexler]

Hi @GilbertQ, thanks for the reply.

Actually, I have made extensive use of drill-through. But I also need URL links to provide the functionality the user needs.

I'm dealing with four primary tables, which have a parent-child-grandchild relationship. Each table has a large amount of data - enough that we need to use embedded capacity.

And there are multiple reports for each table: data lookup, various types of analysis, KPIs and management reports, etc. So I have create a single "data lookup" report for each table that imports the data, calculates columns and measures, etc. All of the other reports for that table connect to that dataset. And from that dataset, they can navigate to other related data - such as people, locations, resources, etc. That's where the links come in.

I've created calculated columns with the web urls to other related reports, passing in parameters from the row in this table to focus the new report on data related to what they're viewing. And it works great in Service - all of the reports that use that dataset can navigate to other areas of interest quickly and easily. And the new report opens in a second tab, which is not a problem - in fact, they can kepp both open side by side if they want.

However, when we embed these reports in our apllication, opening a new window outside of our apllication is a problem - for security, navigation control, differing UI, etc. So we want to specify how the page is displayed - classically done with an anchor tag, the URL in an href and a "target" parameter. But I don't see any way to do that in Power BI.

Any ideas on how to accomplish what we need? It doesn't need to be a <a> tag, if there's some other way to do it.

Thanks,

Sam

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @SamTrexler

As of this time I do not know of any way to do this, but I am fairly certain that there are some changes coming to the Power BI where you will be able to have more control over links within a Power BI Report.

[SamTrexler]

Hi @GilbertQ, what you say seems to be the case so I am accepting your answer as the solution.

We are working on a possible work-around: We will create a page in our application that I can call from Power BI with a list of paramewters (Workspace name, report name, page name and the filters I want to apply) and our application will display the filtered report we want to link to. This is a little more indirect, but it should let us control the dispaly.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about Power BI, and I do hope they come out will improvements in this area.

Regards,

Sam

[GilbertQ]

Thanks for letting us know. I'm certain that the new features will be out soon.