Visual Insights service change log

IMPORTANT: Change log has moved to this site: Visual Insights change log.

6/18/2024

This release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Enhancements

Ability to cancel model processing from the Model Builder or the Processing Results page [ADO 96187, 98753]

Implemented an 8-second buffer in the user interface where users can cancel model processing before the request to process models is sent.

Ability to dynamically pivot biweekly payroll data (requires Platform version 3100.12 or higher) [ADO 96194]

Re-engineered the biweekly pivot option to better meet product requirements. The biweekly pivot now uses the model current year and biweekly current period to determine the data to pivot for the current year. The pivot reads pay dates for the current year from a designated table; the dates can now be held in either a Date column or a String column. You can also include prior years in the pivot with pay dates dynamically determined based on the last pay date of the previous year.

Any biweekly pivot tables that you created using the previous implementation are now invalid. Users must create new biweekly pivot tables using the new feature.

Support for adding any column to a pivot table [ADO 99185]

Removed the restriction that prevented users from adding columns that are not lookup or key columns to a pivot table.

Support for pivoting yearly data in Axiom Platform [requires platform 3100.12 or higher] [ADO 99090]

Users can now select tables with year-based column data and pivot the data in Visual Insights. The yearly data may be stored in a column sequence of any length, and can be either forward-looking data or prior year data.

Support getting current year from File Group context [requires platform 3100.12 or higher] [ADO 98974]

The model current year can now be derived from the designated file group context for the model. If this option is selected, the model current year will be the file group year.

Support for treating dimension tables as fact tables [requires platform 2023.2 or higher] [ADO 99184]

When adding a dimension table to a model, you can now specify that the model treats the table as a fact table. If you enable this option, you cannot use the table as a dimension, but can include it in the model as a stand-alone table and form relationships with other dimension tables. This option is available as a one-time choice when you add the dimension table to the model. To change a fact table to a dimension table you must delete it and re-add it to the model with the Treat as Fact Table option toggled off.

Issues fixed

This service release resolved the following issues:

Number Description
ADO 92713 Issue: Reports disappeared from Info/Settings panel after processing was initiated.

Resolution: The list of reports for the model in Info/Settings panel are visible.
ADO 92725 Issue: If no tables met the pivot criteria, the dialog showed a blank list instead of a message.

Resolution: When users create a pivot table and no tables meet the criteria for the pivot, the pivot wizard shows an explanatory message.
ADO 93370 Issue: The underlying text code replaced the display label in the user interface.

Resolution: Fixed the code to eliminate the appearance of code in the display label.
ADO 97643 Issue: Data Model processing stalled in Refresh Pending status if users select Always Use Replicated Data for one table, and Never Use Replicated Data for another.

Resolution: Fixed the code to cancel processing after the system generates an error.
ADO 99605 Issue: An error occurred when users attempted to open a visualization report immediately after the Microsoft Power BI capacity was scaled up or paused and resumed.

Resolution: Implemented a retry policy for the initial connection.

ADO 100028 Issue: If a pivot table date column name included a space, an error, or refresh time out, occurred during model processing.

Resolution: The system now handles this space during model processing so that no error occurs.

5/6/2024

This release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Enhancements

Provided improved messaging for auto-generated Dates table in relationship details (requires Platform version 3100.11 or higher) [ADO 4225]

The date column informational message was updated to explicitly state that the Data table is auto-generated. The message also provides information about how dates and date-times are handled in the model.

Support for four decimals (requires Platform version 3100.11 or higher) [ADO 96191]

To manage model sizes and required calculations, maximum decimal and percent precision were increased to 4 (default is 2 for columns and measures).

Support for current period columns in date table (requires Platform version 3100.11 or higher) [ADO 60521]

The date table includes the following current date period columns as values for slicing:

  • Current Date

  • Current Year

  • Current Year Month (YRMO)

  • Current Fiscal Year

  • Current Fiscal YRMO

The current values are related to three new properties in the model:

  • Current Date

  • Current Period

  • Current year

Issues fixed

This service release resolved the following issues:

Number Description
ADO 92311 Issue: The filter measure did not handle quotation marks in string values.

Resolution: Fixed the filter to accept quotation marks in string values.
ADO 92403 Issue: Dragging a pivot date column to a filter measure parameter ended the session.

Resolution: Fixed dragging to the corresponding data type column when creating a quick measure.
ADO 92405 Issue: Behavior was incorrect when users selected highlighted columns in Add Columns dialog, and then filtered the list or cleared the filter.

Resolution: Fixed the code that highlights only items that users select, even if the filter is applied.
ADO 93300 Issue: A calculation group was missing from the Add table menu for new models.

Resolution: Added the Create a calculation group item to the Add table container.
ADO 94050 Issue: When creating a new model, a spinner was not displayed to indicate system processing while the page contents were loading.

Resolution: Created a spinner while the page contents are loading so users are confident processing is occurring.
ADO 94302 Issue: User interface text updates were required in the Model Builder.

Resolution: Full text descriptions were updated.
ADO 97439 Issue: Decimal validation behavior was different for columns versus measures.

Resolution: Removed the auto-correct attribute that inadvertently added to the decimal place input to correct behavior.

4/1/2024

This release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Enhancements

This release includes the following enhancements:

Support for manual measures and manual calculation items (requires Platform version 3100.11 or higher) [ADO 88026][ADO 81644]

  • Use the new permission, Visual Insights Manual Measure Creator, to create, edit, and copy manual measures and manual calculation items in the model builder. Users without this permission have read-only access to view any existing manual measures and manual calculation items in the model.

  • Manual measures and calculation items require users to create valid Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) statements for a model. Visual Insights Manual Measure Creator permission should only be provided to users who understand the Microsoft Power BI DAX language and the model table structure.

  • Users with the Visual Insights Manual Measures Creator permission can create manual measures or manual calculation items:

    • Existing quick measures and templated calculation items have a context menu option for copying the item as a manual item. This action copies the item and converts the existing templated DAX formula into an editable manual DAX formula.

    • When creating a new manual measure or calculation item, users have the option to start from a blank item or use a measure template. After configuring the template with the user's options, the item is created as a manual item with an editable DAX formula.

Added bidirectional relationship support (requires Platform version 2023.2 or higher) [ADO 87578]

  • Users can create bidirectional relationships between tables in the model builder. In a bidirectional relationship, data is filtered in both directions rather than only from the dimension table.

  • By default, the bidirectional relationship option is disabled on lookup columns. You must enable this option to make a relationship bidirectional.

Support for pivoting daily data for Intramonth Reporting (requires Platform version 3100.11 or higher) [ADO 61501]

A new pivot data type, Rolling Daily, creates a pivot tablet for rolling data. Pivot - Rolling Daily transforms a single table by converting a 32-period column sequence of daily data into a single value column with a date key. The table must also have a date column with a single date indicating the last day of the monthly period. The data in the first column of the sequence corresponds to the specified date, the next column corresponds to one day before that date, and so on.

Added automatically generated Measure Catalog to support dynamic measure switching (requires Platform version 2023.2 or higher) [ADO 81624]

When a user processes a model with at least one measure, a special table, named Measure Catalog, is automatically created in the model and available in visualization reports. The table holds a list of all measures in the model and their source table, along with an automatically generated measure, named Selected Measure. When using the table to create slicers by measure, the Selected Measure dynamically displays the results of the currently selected measure.

Issues fixed

This service release resolved the following issues:

Number Description
ADO 83982 Issue: An imported model with a pivot table unexpectedly flagged the Value column as missing.

Resolution: Older-style references to the Value column were automatically updated to match new standards when the model is opened.
ADO 85107 Issue: When selecting Save As in the model builder or selecting Copy model in the Intelligence Center, trailing spaces were not trimmed. This issue could result in names appearing identically in the user interface.

Resolution: Trailing spaces are trimmed when saving a new model. The trimmed version of the name also checks for existing duplicate filenames. The fix for Intelligence Center requires Platform version 3100.11.
ADO 88280 Issue: An improper table was loaded in Add columns dialog of Model Builder due to slow performance.

Resolution: A spinner was implemented that waits for the table information to be loaded to the model builder before showing the table on the tree view.
ADO 88304 Issue: Report titles were hardcoded to report the filename rather than continuing to default when copying a visualization report.

Resolution: When users copy a visualization report, the report title is not set and defaults to the new filename in the same manner as a new report. This fix requires Platform version 3100.11.
ADO 89010 Issue: When opening a Visual Insights model in Firefox, a red error message opened briefly on the Intelligence Center page before the model opened.

Resolution: The red error message no longer appears when opening a model.
ADO 89859

Issue: Warning messages did not appear when opening or editing visualization reports from the Reports tab. A warning message was expected to appear if the model exhibited the following behavior:

  • Errors on its last processing

  • Was currently being processed

  • In the queue to be processed

Resolution: Warning messages appear as expected. This fix requires Platform version 3100.11.
ADO 92487

Issue: For Snowflake-enabled systems, model processing failed if the Value column in a pivot table had trailing spaces on the name.

Resolution: Trailing spaces on names in the model builder are automatically trimmed.

1/9/2024

This release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Enhancements

This service release includes the following enhancements:

Support for client-developed Microsoft Power BI themes (requires Platform version 3100)

  • Store theme in file library within Desktop Client. [ADO 75233]

    • Users can store themes in the newly created Reports Theme Library within the Desktop Client.

    • Standard file security features control access to the library.

    • Users with the new security permission, Visual Insights Theme Administrator, can designate a client-developed theme as the default for a visualization report. [ADO 76793][ADO 83423]

  • Change theme within Visual Insights report [ADO 75234]

    • Using the Reports Settings pane, users can view the current theme that is applied to a visualization report.

    • Users can select a different theme for the report or revert the report to use the default theme.

Handling of Power BI workspaces as client nears limit (requires Platform version 3100)

  • Visualization reports over a designated threshold are periodically purged from the Power BI workspace to avoid exceeding the 1000-report limit. [ADO 68407]

  • Any visualization report not currently uploaded to Power BI is now uploaded on demand when the report is opened in Axiom. [ADO 85989]

Support for calculation groups (requires Platform version 2023.2 or higher) [ADO 84114]

  • Users can add a calculation group by clicking Add table in the model builder.

  • Users can add calculation items to calculation groups using the same templates that available for measures.

    • Measure templates support at least one parameter where a measure can be used.

    • One parameter is designated as the placeholder parameter for the selected measure. Users can configure the other parameters as normal.

NOTE: When a calculation group is present in the model, all summarized value columns in the model become hidden because users cannot use implicit measures with calculation groups. You must create measures for these columns to use the columns in the model.

Create visualization reports from Visual Insights models delivered by products to clients without Visual Insights licenses (requires Platform version 3100)

Create visualization reports from product-delivered Visual Insights models without requiring a Data Model Manager (DMM) license. [ADO 85664]

  • Users can create reports from Visual Insights models without owning a Data Migration Manager (DMM) license.

  • The menu option is hidden when no models are available.

Model ID appears in model properties [ADO 75020]

The ID number of the current model appears in the model properties pane for information purposes. This ID corresponds to the dataset created in Power BI. Customer Support may request this value for troubleshooting issues.

Measure enhancements

  • An enhancement to an existing Addition measure template adds more than two column values. Users can add parameters to the Addition measure or delete them if there are more than two parameters.[ADO 74394]

  • New templates are available for period-based time intelligence measures where users can dynamically select the period for the measure. [ADO 81618]

    • Period-to-date total (fiscal year period available)

    • Period-over-period change

    • Period-over-period percentage change

      NOTE: The new measure templates replace the previous period-based measure templates (such as year-to-date total) for systems running Platform version 2023.2 and higher. Any models using the old templates continue to work. When users open the model in the model builder, the old template is automatically migrated to the corresponding new template. For versions 2023.1 and lower, the old templates remain available.

  • Users can create multiple items - one for each available period - when a measure contains a Period parameter. For each item created, the period is appended to the specified name to generate a unique name for each item. If the name already exists, a number is appended to maintain uniqueness. [ADO 84118]

    Dynamically generate measures or calculation items for all periods. When using the new dynamic time intelligence templates, users can opt to automatically generate a measure or calculation item for each period type, rather than manually creating each one. [ADO 84119]

Issues fixed

This service release resolved the following issues:

Number Description
ADO 73975 Issue: If a Refresh in Progress model is frozen because of an issue in previous processing, the model can no longer be processed from the Intelligence Center/Model Builder in Platform version 2023.2 and higher. A fix was previously made that addresses Refresh Pending models, but that fix did not work on Refresh in Progress models.

Resolution: The processing job sets the model to an error state if it did not receive processing results back from the service. This process prevents the issue from occurring in the future.
ADO 76048 Issue: If users process a model in Platform version 2023.2, the processing results stated:
• Deleting datamart tables was skipped.
• Datamart tables were deleted.

Resolution: Only the correct message about skipping datamart tables deletion appears in Platform version 2023.2.
ADO 78142 Issue: In Snowflake systems, the Process Step Number column could display many decimals.

Resolution: The Process Step Number column appears correctly without decimals in Snowflake systems.

ADO 78849

 Issue: If model processing returned an error, and the error message was longer than the allowed message length to be stored in the Axiom database, the model remained in an in progress state and the error was not reported.

Resolution: The error message is truncated to the allowed length and that the model is updated to the correct error state.

ADO 80462

 Issue: When users imported an updated visualization report over an existing report, the update was not synced with Power BI.

Resolution: Updated reports are uploaded to Power BI when importing a report over an existing report.
ADO 80716 Issue: If model processing expired, the processing record in the Processing Results page remained in Processing status.

Resolution: When model processing expires, the record for the processing instance on the Processing results page is correctly updated to Failure.

ADO 81436

 Issue: If a Visual Insights model with an external table has a bad configuration, a server error occurred when opening the model in Snowflake systems only.

Resolution: The model opens in the model builder and flags the external table with the invalid configuration.

ADO 84999

 Issue: The Copy Measure function used obsolete naming rules for measures and did not allow valid measure names.

Resolution: The Copy Measure dialog uses the same naming rules as when editing measures are created and edited.

ADO 85636

 Issue: If a folder contained many visualization reports, it was slow to open in the Intelligence Center.

Resolution: The process for reading the source model for visualization reports was optimized to prevent sluggish response.

10/10/2023

Enhancements

This service release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Report on process management status (requires Platform version 2023.3)

  • Add process status columns to your model to report on the status of plan files within visualization reports.

    • Users can add a File Group Context to a model by selecting a specific file group or a file group alias. This setting appears in the Model Properties pane.

    • After users designate a File Group Context, they can add process status columns to the plan code table for the file group or to any table that references the plan code table. A new menu item of Add process columns is available with these tables. The following columns are available:

      • Process status

      • Current step number

      • Current step name

      • Process initiator (for on-demand file groups)

Pivot table enhancements (requires Platform version 2023.3)

  • Uses system current year for the dynamic pivot table.

    • The system current year property determines the end year for the pivot table. When creating or editing a pivot table, users choose between the system current year or a product variable.

  • String value columns are available on pivot tables.

    • Users can enter string column sequences as value columns on a pivot table, which allow for comments on a pivot table.

    • The tables in the table series must have a sequence of the required length (for monthly or biweekly), where the sequence is comprised of 12 or 26/27 string columns. If users select a string sequence as the sequence for a value column:

      • The model builder recognizes the data type as a string and hides the inapplicable numeric formatting options on the value column.

      • Model processing recognizes the data type of the column as a string and treats the column accordingly in the generated model.

        NOTE: If string sequences were present in earlier Platform versions, these sequences were not hidden in the model builder and users could select them for use in the pivot table. However, this fails in model processing because processing assumed the value columns were always numeric. Selecting a string sequence only works starting with Platform version 2023.3.

  • Multiple value columns are available for pivot tables.

    • Starting with Platform version 2023.3, users can add multiple value columns to a pivot table. For example, if a biweekly pivot table has two different sequences (one for dollars and one for hours), users can create a pivot table with both columns.

    • The initial creation of the pivot table remains unchanged. Users still select a single sequence for the automatically-generated value column. However, after creating the pivot table, users can add more value columns to the pivot table with the following context menu on the pivot table.

  • Users can edit each value column to specify the sequence and edit the name of the column. For example, one value column can be named Dollars and point to the dollar sequence; another value column can be named Hours and point to the hours sequence.

    NOTE: Editing the sequence and name for the value column is available in all versions; however, a pivot table have can multiple value columns only in Platform version 2023.3 and higher.

  • Pivot table properties, such as whether the table is static or dynamic, and the year configuration, are no longer listed as read-only on the Table Property pane. An Edit button generates a dialog that allows configuring these properties using a similar user interface as the pivot table creation dialog.

Visual Insights relationship management (virtual lookups) (requires Platform version 2023.3)

  • Users can mix data from disparate data sources within Power BI visualizations and set a bi-specific lookup column in the table editor using the column property Virtual BI Lookup Column. This bi-specific lookup column can reference external target tables. The data types between these fields must match.

  • Added support in model builder to recognize bi-virtual relationships and treat them the same as normal relationships.

    • Relationships in the model builder respect the Virtual BI Lookup Column setting on Axiom columns. Because setting both a bi-specific lookup column and a regular Axiom lookup column is allowed in the table editor, the model builder prefers the bi-version.

    • Relationships appear in the model builder for these lookups in the same scenarios as normal lookups. However, a warning appears on the parent column indicating that the lookup table columns are not available in the Add Columns dialog or in the Filter Wizard.

    • If a user adds a filter to a column that is referenced by a bi-lookup in the model, a warning message appears underneath that filter indicating that the filter will not be applied to those bi-lookup parent tables. Otherwise, during processing, this relationship is treated like any other when creating the BI relationship.

Simplified renaming of a Visual Insights report (requires Platform version 2023.3)

  • The report title defaults to the filename. If users want the report title to be different than the file name, they can define this title separately in the Settings pane.

Filter enhancements (requires Platform version 2023.3)

When creating a limit filter for a table in a model, users can specify whether the filter uses include or exclude behavior. Include behavior is the default.

Miscellaneous enhancements (requires Platform version 2023.3)

  • Measure names can contain a variety of special characters. The following characters are allowed:
    _&$%#'@=+*/"()[]{} -|<>.

  • If a model contains a column that does not exist in the system, the missing column and its parent table are flagged with a warning icon and a tooltip to describe the issue.

7/18/2023

This service release includes the following enhancements and fixes.

Enhancements

This service release includes the following enhancements:

Updates to Visual Insights model processing and introduction to Processing Results page (*requires Platform version 2023.2)

  • Moved Visual Insights model processing from the Platform to the Visual Insights service provides for more rapid deployment and issue fixes [ADO 8733]

  • Created new Processing Results page accessible through the Intelligence Center. [ADO 18012]

    • If you have access to a Visual Insights model, and the page is filtered to only show models to which you have access, use the Processing Results page to view the status and details of Visual Insights model processing jobs. Click the value in the Job column to open the Detail results dialog associated with that job. The dialog lists the various steps completed during the job.

    • Using this information, you can identify which specific steps in the job failed. Axiom displays Job processing updates in the Notifications menu of the Axiom toolbar to alert you of changes in status to your jobs. The update in the Notifications menu includes a link to the Processing Results page.

  • A mechanism purges old model processing results by adding a date threshold on the SystemDataPurge Job. [ADO 48055]

    • Set the number of days to keep the processing results for Visual Insights models.

  • Processing a model uploads any missing reports to Power BI (PBI). [ADO 61453]

Visual Insights pivot table functionality (requires Platform version 2023.2)

  • Use pivot tables to transform tables with time as columns (wide tables) into tables with time as a key (narrow tables). Also, use pivot tables to combine multiple separate year-based tables into one table holding data for all years.

  • Automatically include additional years within a pivot table using dynamic years [ADO 18370]

    • Model designers can create pivot tables that change years dynamically based on a variable. Static and dynamic pivot tables have a key difference in how the years within the pivot table are defined.

      When defining a static pivot table, you specify a start year, and a fixed number of years to include going forward (for example, start year of 2021 + include 3 years means 2021-2023). These years are fixed and do not change unless you edit the pivot table to change the year configuration. Because the configuration is fixed, if one of the expected year tables is missing, the model errors when processing.

      When defining a dynamic pivot table, you specify an end year by selecting a variable. You then select a maximum number of years to include going backward (for example, end year is determined by the variable Budget Current Year (product variable) which is currently 2023. The maximum years to include is 3. This format resolves to 2021-2023. The end year is dynamic based on the variable. If the variable value changes to 2024, the pivot table resolves to 2022-2024. You must reprocess the model to incorporate this change. The maximum number of years to include remains the same unless you edit the pivot table to change the maximum years.

      Dynamic pivot tables require the end year to be present; if it is not present, the model creates errors when processing. Any additional tables are only included, if present. For example, if the maximum years to include is 3 but only the end year and one more year are present, only those two tables are included.

  • A model designer can create a pivot table where the table series has 26/27 periods instead of 12 (biweekly instead of monthly periods). [ADO 2843]

    • You must have a table with a specific structure to define the pay period dates.

    • Biweekly pivot tables must also have a dedicated table to define the pay period dates with the following table structure:

      • Integer key column for year

      • Integer key column for period

      • Date column for pay date

    • Column names can have any description, but the table must have only the two required integer keys and at least one date column. Other non-key columns can be present, but are not used in the pivot table.

      NOTE: Unlike monthly pivot tables, biweekly pivot tables do not use the configured fiscal year end for the system. The dates for the periods in the pivot table depend solely on the pay period date table. This new functionality also requires Platform version 2023.2

  • Support exposing tables filter capabilities within pivot tables. [ADO 18533]

    • Starting with Platform version 2023.2, you can define a filter for the pivot table to limit the records that are included in the pivot table. The filter is applied to each year table included in the pivot table.

      When defining the filter, the Filter Wizard shows the base table for the pivot. This is the start year for a static pivot table and the end year for a dynamic pivot table. Use this base table to create a filter statement, per normal practice.

Limit decimal precision on Visual Insights models to reduce model size (*requires Platform version 2023.2) [ADO 47417]

Reduce the precision of decimal values and currency fields in the Visual Insights model.

Copy a measure. [ADO 55151]

Copy a measure by selecting Copy from the dropdown in the Model Designer.

Collapse/expand (all) the model structure within the Model Designer [ADO 55152]

The default is set to open each model with the model structure collapsed.

Build a visualization report directly from the Model Designer page [ADO 55154]

You no longer need to return to the Intelligence Center to build a visualization report from a model. If a model was processed and you have the proper permissions, a button in the top right corner builds a visualization report from the model.

Issues fixed

This service release resolved the following issues:

Number Description

ADO 48056

 Issue: If a model was stuck in Refresh pending artificially (due to some issue), the model could no longer be processed from the Intelligence Center/Model Builder in 2023.2.

Resolution: If the BIModel record was set to Refresh pending over five minutes ago and someone attempts to start processing again, the model is scheduled for processing.
ADO 63845 Issue: If you deleted a non-lookup key from your pivot table, you could not retrieve it without recreating the entire pivot table.

Resolution: Allowed key columns to be added on pivot tables.
ADO 67394 Issue: If your model contained an Integer16 column, that column was not processed like Integer and Integer32 columns in the model.

Resolution: Included Integer16 on tabular datatype.
ADO 71593 Issue: If validation text appears for certain fields in the model builder, and users scroll the page, the text remained anchored in place instead of moving with its field.

Resolution: Validated that inputs inputs in the model builder had proper style to stay anchored.
ADO 71625 Issue: When using the filter option for the Job Status column on the Processing results page, an option appeared with faulty text.

Resolution: Filtered new state as no option on the Processing results page.

ADO 71646

 Issue: Attempting to save a model after creating a new limit filter failed.

Resolution: Items were addressed on the back end and saving a model works effectively.

ADO 71757

 Issue: If a model was in Pending processing state, selecting Process model on the Processing results page did nothing. This defect only applied to the Processing results page.

Resolution: Removed validation to check sent models. The five minutes of validation already existed on the Platform.

ADO 72857

 Issue: Create visualization popup functionality did not render correctly.

Resolution: Set create visualization to a smaller size.

ADO 75157

 Issue:With large models, the model size could be computed and displayed as negative. If int was used in the mathematics to compute the model size, and if the model was over 2GB, the maximum value for the int was exceeded.

Resolution: Fixed model size for large models.

ADO 75310

 Issue: Model processing unexpectedly failed with an error stating that the column did not exist in the rowset. If users processed the model multiple times, a different column could be reported, which was not used in the model.

Resolution: Merged all the definitions per the datamart table so the table is created once with all columns referenced from all role-playing dimensions.