Persistent filters in App and Workspace for same report different behavior

[SandervdM]

There seems to be a difference in the way persistent filters are behaving or saved in Apps and Workspaces.

To begin with there are no favorites present in the list.

I have created a report from an imported Excel file and disabled the possibility to save filters in the pbix file. I did that after I published the pbix file before. In the first published pbix version some words that are used in the filters were misspelled; these were corrected in the second version. When viewing the report in the App and I click Reset to default the filters return to the misspelled text, which is strange of course. And the changes the user made in the filters are saved, which should not be possible.

When viewing the report in the Workspace the Reset to default button is grayed out with a comment that the author has disabled saving filters for this report; that comment is correct. However, the user is able to change filters in the sidebar called Filters. But now he/she cannot Reset these. The user needs to reopen the report to get the default filters active again.

Anyone any experience with this and knows how to solve this? Meaning:

- how to reset to the new, correct filters in the app?

- how to prevent the user from having to reopen the report in the workspace to get the default filters active again

Cheers,

Sander

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

Did you republish the App? Also you could try unpublishing the App and then republishing it.

[SandervdM]

Thanks; this seems to work; have also tested this with a viewer account. At least now in the App the Reset to default button is greyed out and the filter is now the correct one.

What I did to republish the app is: within the app click on the pencil (edit app) and then twice Update app and Update once.

I would think that the app is using the settings from the workspace, but apparently it has its own settings, even duplicate ones (ie. persistent filters setting at least)

Now the viewer is still able to change the filters in the filters panel; is there a possibility to prevent this?

Because of the greyed out button the user can only go back to the default by reloading the page in the browser (but at least the filters are not persistent anymore)

[SandervdM]

Found a solution (work around) to prevent the user/viewer from changing the filters:

In Power Bi Desktop (September 2019 version) goto File->Options and settings->Options. At the bottom of the list: choose Current File->Report Settings, under Persistent filters check "Don't allow end users to save filters on this file in the Power BI service". This option seems to disable the persistent filters functionality.

Under Filtering experience check "Enable the updated filter pane, and show filters in the visual header for this report" and click OK. In the filter pane itself click the "eye"-icon at the top to hide the filter pane (Mind you: when the filter pane is now hidden and you uncheck the "Enable the updated filter pane" option the filter pane is visible again in your report).

The only thing now is that the context menu of a visual still shows Include and Exclude. When the user clicks either one of these two options he/she needs to reload the report to get the defaults again.

Of course you need to publish the report in the workspace and update the app as well as described above.