Introduction
I created a Power BI report connected to a SharePoint online list. For two of the visuals, I applied a filter on the value for TRUE or FALSE. The column was of Yes/No or Boolean type. I published this report to Power BI Web service. The report was working fine at Power BI Web as well. Then I scheduled the refresh to daily in order to update the dataset with the latest data.
After the refresh some of the visuals became blank, no data was shown in there. What happened so suddenly? What was changed due to the refresh of the data?
Cause
After digging into the issue, I understood that the data was changed after the refresh in Power BI web service.
At Power BI Desktop. for the Yes/No (Boolean) column, the values are TRUE/FALSE. But in Power BI Web in the same column after the refresh, the data appears to be -1/0, with -1 for TRUE and 0 for FALSE. Why is that? It looks like there is a mismatch in the functionalities of Power BI Desktop and Power BI Web service.
That’s the reason why some of the visuals were blank, as the visual filters were looking for TRUE or FALSE values, but there are -1/0 values instead.
Solution
To resolve this, we will modify the filters in Power BI Desktop. You can use advanced filtering at Power BI Desktop itself. For example, the value is TRUE, or -1, as shown below.
Specifying TRUE will work properly at Power BI Desktop and specifying -1 will make it work correctly after Refresh at Power BI Web service. For other visuals where you want to show false values, you can use advanced filtering, with a value of FALSE, or 0.