Customisations and the best way to create them?

Question

Hi All,

Using BI 12.2.1.4.0

I have an analysis which comprises a lot of columns (I'll not say how many, most of you would have a fit )

The business are looking for a way of 'one size fits all' for this analysis for their pan-European end users so the most logical way was to set up templates and let the users add and remove columns as they please and saving the customisations.

The issue I have now is that users are complaining that adding/removing columns is a long and arduous process. The report refreshing every time they add/remove a column meaning it can take 30+ seconds per column.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I'd be interested to hear of how this was resolved or of any better ways of adding/removing columns either more than one-by-one or in a quicker manner.

Thanks,

Lee

Shane.S · Answer

Are there a couple of more commonly used versions of your analysis (number of columns and which specific columns get used) that your end users typically use?

If you set up these different variations (provided there wouldn't be too many) as either different pages on a dashboard, or if you want to keep it on one analysis then you could use view selector and then name these different variations in a way that depending on the users preference, it's easy for them to find the version best suited for them.

Hopefully, by doing it this way, even if there isn't a variation for everyone's needs, they could find one that is similar and they wouldn't need to add/remove too many columns to get what they want. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to add/remove multiple columns at the same time (as far as I'm aware).

Lee Gledhill · Answer

Hi Joel. Visualisation has been considered as a potential future solution but the sheer volume of data and the lack of trust in the end users is preventing the business from wanting to move forward with it at this point.

Thanks for your help though.

Joel Acha · Answer

Have you by any chance considered theData Visualisation tool? This is much more self service focused  and may be a better fit for your use case.