Timeline Slicer Usability

[Chris99]

The Timeline Slicer custom visual works quite well. However it is currently pretty much unusable due to its massive space requirements. At the moment one third of the vertical space on my report is taken up with the Timeline Slicer.

I don't know if anyone from the MS custom visuals team is here, but you need to run it past a usability expert. I am unable to leave a review in the store, so here is my feedback.

The problems are:

• The whitespace around the time periods means too much vertical space is used.
• Stacking the time periods on top of each other is again very wasteful. A more intelligent layout is required, maybe putting month, quarter and year on the same line for example.
• You are unable to reduce the font size below 8pt, which would be useful for certain elements.
• The vertical and horizontal space taken up by the coloured timeline is too much.
• It should be possible to configure the lowest level of the time heirarchy, ie to prevent drilling down to days.
• It should be possible to configure the fiscal calendar to start on a shifting event, for example the second Monday in April.
• It should be possible to toggle between regular and fiscal calendar whilst using the Timeline Slicer.

[v-viig · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the feedback.

We'll consider all of points in upcoming versions.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[Chris99]

Thank you @v-viig,

I'd be really keen to learn of any progress with this.

Chris

[v-viig]

All of requested improvements are in our backlog.

We'll update this topic once we finish some of improvements.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[Chris99]

Great to hear

[cnschulz]

Cant wait!

[RLilj33]

+1 on getting the amount of page real estate used improved for this extremely useful slicer.

Some ideas:

1. Move the Range Header up to top of the visualization (aligned with the top of the slider)
2. Display the Y/Q/M/W indicators on the horizontal plane instead of vertical
3. Allow for a static size of cells
   1. Even better, allow the developer to set the cell size
4. Allow customization of the slider Granularity level
   1. Instead of forcing Y/Q/M/W/D, allow developers to select which of these values to allow on the slider
5. Allow for custom date range entry
   1. Ideally, allow a user to click on the first and/or last date and enter a custom value

[v-viig]

Thanks for ideas guys. We'll consider all of them.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[Chris99]

@v-viig Can I ask why this is showing as solved? Just saying "Yeh, we'll look at that at some unknown time in the future" is not a solution.

Chris

[v-viig]

Not really sure.

I suggest to create another topic in ideas to track its status.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[Chris99]

@v-viigThanks, but there are already ideas around the timeline slicer, and I don't want to fragment the votes. Can't this post just be marked an unsolved?

Anyway, the Power BI team don't seem that active on the ideas section, as there is no attempt to consolidate very similar ideas, popular and long-running ideas often get no feedback from Power BI team members, and sometimes items are marked as completed when the features released do not meet the initial idea.

Sorry if this sounds like a moan, but I just feel that in its current state the ideas pages often leave me feeling frustrated.

Cheers,

Chris

[v-viig]

As far as I know, there's no way to unresolve the item. Our suggestion is to open a new idea.

We monitor ideas but we have limitted resources to implement all of them.

If idea was implemented in another way I suggest to comment the idea or open a new one.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[Anonymous]

Do we have any PBI timeline visuals with hour and minutes level?  All the timeline slicer are all up to day and above level so far.

[v-viig]

Not sure if have any. Please look for such a visual in AppSource.

Ignat Vilesov,

Software Engineer

Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals

pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[paulinamaj]

Hi, my paratimeline slicer after click button RESET don't show last day of my date period. Any ideas why? please help. 

[AndreVar67]

Hello @v-viig .

May I ask you when we could have a new Timeline version with - at least - a reduction of taken space ?

Thanks

BR

[v-evelk]

Hello,

We are going to release a new version of Timeline with this feature on the beginning of June 2019.

Kind Regards,

Evgenii Elkin,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals
pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[RLilj33]

That is great news! Looking forward to seeing the new changes.

[Chris99]

Great news @v-evelk . Looking forward to seeing how many of my original points have been addressed.

Chris

[Anonymous]

Hi Evgenii, Can we get an update on this visual? I can't seem to find it. What is it called?

[msirasky]

Any update on the Size of this slicer.  Seems to work really well, but is still enormous.  Thanks.

[v-evelk]

Hello,

No updates for a while.

Kind Regards,

Evgenii Elkin,
Software Engineer
Microsoft Power BI Custom Visuals
pbicvsupport@microsoft.com

[rafaelruivo]

Hi guys, any update on this? I hate to sound demanding, but what good is a perfectly engineered report if my user keeps complaining of the presentation? I know there are a lot of other important stuff to do, but this is a quick win over a basic functionality that is currently broken, and one with great visibility. As it stands, I can either have one third of my screen real state taken by this visual, or just revert back to the barebones (emphasis on "bare") default data slicer. Please, give this slicer the love it deserves!  

[msirasky]

I second that!  Would love to see the slicer reduced in size so we can use it.

[rafaelruivo]

My idea is to go from this monster:

To this (ugly because it was made in Paint, but you get my meaning):

I would love to set inly the labels that are relevant to me:

[msirasky]

Yes!

[ashamsuzzoha]

This slicer would be workable if it would dynamically shrink in width. How hard can this fix be?