9 hidden gems about On-Object Editing in Power BI

On-Object editing in Power BI has had a ton of updates! Adam walks through 9 hidden gems you probably didn't know about using it. You definitely want to see the last one!
Power BI December 2023 Feature Summary
powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/b...
Use on-object interaction with visuals in your report (preview)
learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/...
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- Intro (0:00)
- Enable Preview Feature (0:47)
- 1. Right-Click Canvas Menu (1:05)
- 2. Ribbon Visual Gallery (1:29)
- 3. Resize menus (2:05)
- 4. Right-Click to chage settings (2:36)
- 5. Add-menu - Analytics (3:39)
- 6. Format Pane (4:16)
- 7. Collapse Panes (5:11)
- 8. Open Panes side-by-side (6:08)
- 9. Back to Classic (6:22)
#PowerBI #Visual #GuyInACube

[@GuyInACube]

Apologies for the audio not being up to par for what we produce. The issue is known and corrected for future videos. We appreciate you watching!

[@dataguyme]

Sounded fine to me. 🙂

[@Tom-kp2lv]

I didn't notice any audio issues, and I'm generally pretty picky about that stuff. But thanks for taking the time to make such well produced vids. BTW what kind of mic do you use?

[@GuyInACube]

@@Tom-kp2lvhaha I'm very picky about the audio. I just have a Rode PodMic going through a GoXLR.

[@alitanveer]

My favorite part of On-Object Editing is how relieved I feel when I disable it completely.

[@GuyInACube]

I've seen comments like that before. I'm really curious if you took time to review the updates in the December 2023 Power BI Desktop? Did you enable the items to return the classic like feel that I showed in the video? With those enabled, what are your thoughts on that? And if that still didn't meet your needs, what is missing as compared to with it being turned off?

[@alitanveer]

@@GuyInACube I have been using PowerBI on a daily basis since 2016 and I have always tried to use it to solve business problems and make people's lives easier. I know that the developers want to try out new ideas and see what sticks, but I have to question the underlying merits of some of those ideas, and question if they are seriously considering if a new feature makes anyone's life easier. I did an in-depth comparison between Tableau and PBI in 2016 and recommended PBI to my company because it gave me the freedom to build things the way I wanted, rather than forcing me to feed it data columns and then decide what the available visuals were going to be like Tableau. On-object editing might seem like it's a good idea to increase adoption for people coming over from Tableau or make visual development a bit less convoluted for business users looking for a quick chart, but the reality is that business users don't develop reports no matter how much Microsoft pitches the self-service crap. They just don't. It always comes back to us grunts in the data side. Business users just use Excel because it's easy and familiar for them if they need to do any actual analysis. I have tried to use on-object editing a few times this year and gave it another shot after your comment on the latest updates and I still don't care for it. I don't need to re-arrange my workflow or use workarounds to make it feel more classic when I can just use the classic view by default. I don't want PBI making any decisions for me in terms of what chart will work best for my data or how I want to add new columns to the visual. I have a clean and consistent place to do those things already. But what frustrates me the most about features like this is the fact that it is taking up so much development time and effort on your side to deliver and iterate and fix something that very few people will find helpful. What will make our lives easier is folders inside workspaces, the default view in the service showing only reports rather than blending in reports, dataflows and datasets, so I don't have to constantly teach users how to tell the difference between the icon for a report and icon for a semantic model. End users don't care about the data model and for years the reports and models were separated and the default view was to go to reports, but it got taken away because someone at Microsoft has to check a box showing they built something even if it makes all of our lives harder.

[@gojomoso]

On-object is confusing to me. It’s a “feature” trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. It takes more clicks to change formatting and hides existing capabilities under extra clicks. There are two benefits. One is the analytics pane on the object, as that’s often easy to miss as a separate tab in the format pane. Second benefit is the contextual formatting pane based on what’s selected in the visual. But those benefits are buried in the overall clutter. On object is adding a lot of clutter (like why have so many options to do the same thing like change the visual)? There is so much to sort through and not enough screen real estate compared to the formatting pane. I love testing out new power bi features. But this really feels like the Power BI team doesn’t have a clear purpose for this. What’s the actual value of this compared to what we had before? Even with Dec 23 update. It would be really helpful to understand the “why” this was done. Even if it’s just “we’re doing x to eventually allow y”.

[@GuyInACube]

I appreciate the detailed feedback. That's helpful! Thank you for sharing. My understanding is the overall approach is aligning closer to what Office does. I'm sure there are other reasons as well.

[@mcnater]

Why does everything have to be like Office? That's what I don't get. PBI and Excel/Office ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Why try and shoe horn in the same sort of experience? They might eventually get something more useful but for now it just simply lacking and too much clutter.@@GuyInACube

[@sbdyelse]

Even with December update I still don’t like it. The placeholders where to put the fields are still way too big and I always have the impression I can’t see all what I need to see at once ( need to scroll all the time, collapse or expands the panes …) I would love to like it but switched back again to the classic experience.

[@dataguyme]

Kudos to Microsoft for making on-object editing a choice, not a requirement (and, apparently, a permanent choice they'll support). I'm using it, but not 100% convinced yet. However, I'm continuing long enough I get past it just annoying me 'cause I can't find things as quickly as I could before. 🙂 Now, I will admit I don't know what the impetus behind providing on-object editing was. The old way seemed pretty efficient (minus previous "improvements" Microsoft did to that which made finding things difficult). Thanks for this and your other videos. This channel is one of my favorite three Power BI video providers (with @CurbalEN and @HowtoPowerBI being the other two). Happy New Year Adam!

[@GuyInACube]

Thanks for the feedback! And I'm glad you are giving it a whirl! My understanding is that the changes are to align closer to Office. I'm sure there are other reasons as well.

[@guyblackburn51]

To be fair, I have given it another go and setting it to look like 'Classic' with Filters / Format / Build / Data always visible it's workable. I even quite like using the pane switcher to pull up things I don't have open constantly like the Perf Analyser or Sync Slicers. I'd like to be able to get rid of the blue 'add or remove visual elements' paintbrush though, it's just annoyingly distracting. Sometimes it's to the left of the vis, sometimes the right - I'd rather not have it at all. I don't want to have to search for it to make an edit - I'll just use the panes, I know where they are. I do think it's interesting that Adam says stick around for the last one which I think you may like - and that turns out to be how to get rid of most of the annoyances of on-object & go back to more or less what we're all used to. Unless/until we're forced to use on-object in the future I'll just turn the preview off again I'm afraid.

[@rodemire]

The Nugget #9 is dope. Certainly made me happy. I had switched On Object Editing because of the additional data fields clicking, which has been solved. Thanks for the info!

[@juanes1235]

Thanks for your feedback on the number 7 nugget. I also hated closing unintentionally the pane when I actually meant to collapse it.

[@mrbartuss1]

What we really need is a dark mode

[@GuyInACube]

So say we all! Patience. It's coming.

[@mrbartuss1]

@@GuyInACube Can’t wait! Been hearing this for many years

[@stefanobucciol4279]

Great video as always! Do you guys know where the "Keep all filters" functionality went with these changes? Thanks

[@hamzahlydick5501]

You were not lying, I love #9. It has convinced me to give it another try, I love that we can keep build a visual with all the new flashy features of on object. Kudos to the Microsoft team for really taking feedback and implementing/improving this new feature. One huge pro to PBI over other tools out there.

[@GuyInACube]

BAM! Awesome to hear! I appreciate you giving it another try.

[@hamzahlydick5501]

Gave it another try, and while it is improved for sure. I still don’t like it. It just adds so many more clicks and complexity and is trying to replace something that works and works really well. Old style is just smooth easy and requires lest clicks. The new on object is just so clunky feeling and adds to many unnecessary annoying clicks and behavior. I hope Microsoft doesn’t force this on everyone and leaves the original style as an option. This will really destroy the experience of PBI and make it a less desirable tool.

[@hamzahlydick5501]

My biggest feed back would be to just keep the the dang panes open like they used to… make this an add on instead of replacing what existed…

[@arbazahmad7177]

This is really helpful.. Thanks for sharing 🎉

[@GuyInACube]

My pleasure. Thanks for watching!

[@th3n0rthsid3]

Thanks Adam, I love nuggets too! What I'd love to see this evolve into is detachable panes, similar to what Adobe does with some of their editing features. If I could move my editing panes to a smaller screen, and always have them up, I'd have few clicks and much faster dev.

[@Austin-dm5bp]

On-object editing still feels weird to me, but I deeply appreciate your all's and the team's openness to feedback and ideas. Making Power BI the best tool for data professionals is truly a collaborative, community-wide effort!

[@davidm00ris]

My main gotcha right now for on-object editing is finding the drill through options. Where do I find these now? They used to be right below the visual options but cant for the life of me find these??

[@andrewdutch4843]

I don't want the Build a visual pane to open when I start Power BI, but I do want it to be there in the pane switcher!!! How do i do that?

[@TafadzwaMundida]

One missing piece for me is the value proposition. What's the benefit of trying it? Is it faster than the old way of doing it?

[@vanlessing]

Improvements. The slow yes works for me, I will enable it in ~3 months with the final fixes

[@dhawalpmehta]

Happy New Year Adam, This is amazing with initial 8, I hope I never going to use 9th. Thanks for sharing. 🙇

[@GuyInACube]

Yeah I'm not personally using the Back to Classic. But I like that there are options out there for folks.

[@andemchunu1896]

I've been using on object since its release because I thought it would go peermanent, but it's fine. But ive got a big issue with the December update. When I used to add data in on object the search bar is automatically highlighted and I could immediately search my data, this was one of the biggest wins for on object cause I worked faster but it's been removed now. Im even considering going back to classic

[@melodym5993]

I turned it off, will try again. So agree with Adam's comments on close and collapse. That was getting on my last nerve! Glad it's on collapse now!😊

[@Tom-kp2lv]

Certainly seems like there are some good improvements. I'll wait for feedback from the community though before spending yet more time being Microsoft's QC team!

[@szklydm]

I honestly don't understand people's frustration with on-object editing; I have loved it from the get-go. I accidentally stumbled upon nugget #9 some time ago when I was just clicking around - which is actually how I learned to use Power BI in the first place 😊 #teamonobject

[@GuyInACube]

Appreciate the feedback. The back to classic piece is new as of December 2023, but the visual build as a pane has been there for a bit. I'm glad to hear you are taking advantage of it!

[@mrpsb]

"Back to classic" is doing no such thing based on what's been shown in the video, it's the same annoying setup with a couple of tweaks rather than a true classic mode.

[@motoray1973]

Agreed--back to classic to me would be get rid of on object. I fired it up again and worked with it for the December update and still would rather not use it. Really hoping MS reconsiders this. I get that--if you're new to Power BI--on object makes PBI work more like other Office programs, but I don't like on object in Excel either.

[@GuyInACube]

With moving the visual build to a pane and having panes side by side, that is a similar experience to the old behavior. The build ui is still the updated UI, but the locations are what they were in the old experience. Are you seeing something different? or with that enabled, there are other things you are not liking? Could you elaborate on that?

[@motoray1973]

@@GuyInACube for me, it's the build pane. Am just not a fan of On Object. I understand why it was done, but for me, it just doesn't work as well as the old way (which is still the current way for the version of Power BI Desktop for Report Server we use).

[@DataisKing]

I wish we didn't have to restart Power BI to get the updated settings

[@GuyInACube]

Yeah that can be a pain. I think it only really applies to the preview settings. I mentioned you had to do it for the actual visual settings, but I don't know if you really need to. I'd have to test it more.

[@juanpablorvvv]

I don’t dislike the on-object style, is just that it raises the question of why are they putting so much effort on this if nobody need it nor asked for it?. Why don’t put all this effort on developing new native visuals or all the ideas in the ideas blog? So many things we really need instead of an on-object “feature”.

[@matthiask4602]

I still don´t like it (on-object) . And it gets messier with the new options now which are not intuitive to grasp.

[@GuyInACube]

What specifically do you not like about it compared to the old approach?

[@HachiAdachi]

Yeah, so it took a little bit of muscle memory reset, but now I actually feel that I'm more efficient with the On-object editing despite all the critical feedback I keep coming across. New things are always being added to Power BI Desktop every month, and having to learn new clicks is kind of its thing. I enjoy the changes. In fact, the Desktop quickly feels boring and stale when I don't see updates... like this month...

[@GuyInACube]

Agreed. It took me a bit to retrain the muscle memory. I'm used to it now though.

[@Aaron-rc9kf]

I turned it on to test it out. After testing, I turned it right back off again... 🙂

[@GuyInACube]

Appreciate you turning it on to give it a try. What specifically made you turn it back off? Did you enable Visual Build on the pane along with the Back to Classic option? If you didn't, can you give that a try? If you did, what specifically did you not like compared to the old approach?

[@Phoenixspin]

It's a slow "no" for me.

[@JonasArnout]

I still feel MS is trying to force feed this to us... they abandoned way less worse idea's much quicker than this.... why, just why

[@Brian_z]

The fact that the product team is offering the option to restore the legacy setup is just short of admitting the entire effort has been wasted on a feature that solves no problems, makes no meaningful improvements to the development process, and caused the vast majority of users to overwhelmingly express disappointment and frustration. I will once again refuse to be the QA for this ever evolving feature which has had more iterations than any other feature and is still not an actual enhancement, just a reshuffling of where work is done.

[@roberttyler2861]

There is no hidden gem around on-object. get rid of it.

[@timothygallagher843]

Hey Adam, I love the on Object editing. I am a fairly new Power BI developer but this cures my biggest frustration with most PBI development, which is where to find the values I want to fix. As opposed to @gojomoso I like to fix the problem where it is. @gojomoso

[@GuyInACube]

I appreciate the feedback! 👊 Glad you are making use of it.