Annotation Field for Measures

[gene_cooney]

In PBI Desktop, I would like to be able to right click on a measure in the Field list and have an annotation field where I can write some notes to myself about why I created the measure the way I did. Although in many cases it is clear why the measure was created just by looking at the syntax, there are many situations where an explanation would be very beneficial. Either because of the complexity of the measure or because of the unclear nature of the underlying data fields contained in the measure, I often find myself going back and trying to reconstruct my thought process on why I did something.

[giampiero_difel]

I think PBD should have a tool to create the proper documentation. It would be very helpful during the data preparation. Furthermore it would be necessary when someone ask some users ask changing or adding something else in a report did six months before.

[esatterfield3]

This would be also helpful for columns as well. This feature already exists in Tableau and is incredibly helpful in that it not only gives users the ability to make sense of the intention behind a particular measure or column but also appears as a pop-up when users hover on the column. Simple, but effective.

[andy_clapham]

This is already present in the underlying data model, and editable from tabular editor. Surfacing it in the PowerBI field selector UI would be awesome.

[andyclap]

Just as a note - you can already use comments in the metric itself (line comment // or --; block comment /* */). It would be great if these were surfaced as a tooltip with an (i) icon next to the measure a bit like steps in m. A nice addition could be to check for documentation comments (/// or /** **/) and show only those if present.