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Reporting & Writeback Matrix Docs
Reporting & Writeback Matrix Docs
  • Introduction to Inforiver
    • Why Inforiver
    • Get Started
      • Installing Inforiver for yourself
      • Installing from AppSource
      • Installing Inforiver for your organization (Org visual)
      • Inforiver Writeback Matrix pre-requisites
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  • Working with Inforiver
    • 1. Build your first Inforiver report
    • 2. Displaying information
      • Report interface
      • Layout options
      • Templates
      • Basic formatting
        • Number formatting
        • Cell, header & value formatting
        • Totals & subtotals
        • Insert blank rows
      • Basic inline charts
    • 3. Basic interactions
      • Explore & filter data
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        • Explorer
        • Top N + others
      • Sort & reorder data
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      • Manage column widths
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      • Context menus
        • Column gripper
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      • Actions
        • Rails
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    • 4. Adding business logic and formulae
      • Insert calculated rows
        • Template rows
      • Insert calculated columns
      • Insert manual input rows
      • Insert manual input columns
        • Number
        • Dropdown
          • Dropdown options from semantic models
          • Lookup visuals for dropdowns
        • Text, checkbox & date
        • Writeback Matrix features
      • Invert sign
      • Editing cells
      • Quick formula
      • Visual column inside visual measures
      • Manage inserted rows
      • Manage inserted measures & columns
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    • 6. Working with charts
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    • 5. Conditional formatting
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    • 7. Planning, budgeting & forecasting
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      • Forecasting
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        • Common Scenarios
          • Forecast using a Blank Template
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          • Adding Forecasts for Periods unavailable in the model
          • Creating daily and weekly forecasts
      • Set version
    • 8. Paginated reporting
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    • 10. Exporting reports
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    • 11. Scheduling reports
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    • 12. Data writeback
      • Settings
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      • Logs
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    • 13. Context awareness
    • 14. Manage aggregation
      • Row aggregation
      • Column aggregation
    • 15. Managing Inforiver Writeback Matrix visuals
      • Inforiver deployments in Power BI pipeline setup
      • Duplicating Writeback Matrix Visuals - Best Practices
      • Recommended practices while working with Power BI desktop
    • 16. Approval workflows
    • 17. Collaborative adjustment workflows
    • 18. Variables
      • Variable types
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    • 19. Leveraging Power BI bookmarks
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      • DATEADD
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    • Scripting functions
      • DISPLAYTOAST
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      • SETFILTER
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      • SETVISIBILITY
      • SHOWBETWEENPERIOD
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      • TOPN
      • DISPLAY SETTINGS
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        • SEPARATOR
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        • SEMANTICFORMAT
        • SHOWNULLAS
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        • SINGLECHILD
    • Miscellaneous functions
      • FETCH
      • LOOKUP
    • Measure/Column selection functions
      • GETCOLBETWEENPERIODS
      • GETMEASURE
  • Advanced topics
    • Audit log
    • Backup & restore report config
    • Enterprise themes
    • PowerPoint integration
    • Drill down and roll up in performance mode
  • Infobridge
    • 1. Create bridge
    • 2. Add source to bridge
    • 3. Bridge Interface
    • 4. Manage queries
      • Query transformations
        • Append
        • Join
        • Duplicate
    • 4. Manage sources
    • 5. Insert rows from bridge
    • 6. Insert measure from bridge
    • 7. Manage Integration of visuals
    • 8. Manage Bridges
    • 9. Data transformations
      • Pivot table
      • Group by
      • Add Column
      • Pivot column
      • Rename column
      • Find and Replace
      • Remove measure
      • Filter rows
      • Sort
      • Text functions
      • Unnest
      • Round
      • Extract Comments
      • Import and export
    • 10. Integrating forecasts
    • 11. Collaborative adjustments
  • Accessibility shortcut keys
  • Inforiver Reporting Matrix FAQs
  • Inforiver Writeback Matrix FAQs
  • Video tutorials
  • Resources
  • Release Notes
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix May 2025 - v4.4.3
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix April 2025 - v4.4.2
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix April 2025 - v4.4.
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix March 2025 - v4.3 - Time series formulae
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix - March 2025 - v4.2
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix March 2025 - v4.1
    • Inforiver Reporting Matrix March 2025 - V3.3.3 -New formatting and export options
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix Feb 2025 - v4.0 - User permissions, High-performance mode, Input rules
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix January 2025 - v3.9 - Fabric support, upgraded variables interface
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix December 2024- v3.8 - Improved Scheduler Performance & Other Enhancements
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix December 2024 - v3.7 - Merge rows, new rounding functions & More
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix November 2024 - v3.6.2 - Import from Google Sheets & More
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix October 2024 - v3.6 - Approval Workflows & Other Enhancements
    • Inforiver Writeback Matrix October 2024 - v3.5 - Lookup visuals & more
    • Inforiver Reporting Matrix Nov 2024 - v3.3 - Variables
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  1. Working with Inforiver
  2. 4. Adding business logic and formulae
  3. Insert manual input columns
  4. Dropdown

Lookup visuals for dropdowns

PreviousDropdown options from semantic modelsNextText, checkbox & date

Last updated 4 months ago

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The Inforiver Lookup visual has been designed to help you seamlessly integrate data from different semantic models into your reports and ensure that the data is up-to-date and accurate.

1. Top 3 benefits of using the Inforiver Lookup visual

  • You can fetch data from your source tables in real-time, provided you have an up-to-date semantic model or the lookup table is in direct query/lake mode.

  • Row-level security is implicitly handled as the helper visual displays the list of values based on the data Power BI transmits for a particular user.

  • The lookup visual is lightweight and requires virtually no maintenance like data refreshes.

2. Importing and configuring the Lookup visual

The Inforiver Lookup visual works in tandem with the Matrix visuals. It can be downloaded from our for free and then into Power BI.

To configure the visual, simply drag the dimension with dropdown options from your semantic model into the Dimension field. You can add multiple lookup visuals for a single Inforiver Matrix visual.

3. Sourcing single-select and multi-select options from the Lookup visual

The lookup visual is a more efficient solution that overcomes the drawbacks of connecting directly to the semantic model from Inforiver – the data is refreshed automatically when the Power BI semantic model is refreshed, and RLS settings are honored.

4. Creating a dropdown with Lookup visuals

STEP 1: Select the Lookup Visual option and specify the lookup visual name

When you choose the Lookup Visual option, you must specify the visual name in the configuration. In this case, we are populating dropdown options for the manager’s name – so we’ve selected the corresponding visual name.

STEP 2: Assign the dimension field to source dropdown options

Next, select the Column Label field – the options in the dropdown will be sourced from this field. If you have a primary key or ID field associated with the label field, you can assign the ID field to the Column ID. If the column labels are updated, the ID field mapping ensures that the updated value will be reflected in your reports.

Note: If your lookup table has no ID field, use the same label field (in this example, Manager Name) as Column ID.

STEP 3: Click Add to apply the configuration and create the dropdown.

4. Ensuring data integrity for dropdown options

Let’s take a closer look at assigning a manager from the dropdown. Suppose a manager has jurisdiction over the South and East regions only – but he is incorrectly assigned as an approver for a product category in the Central region. A manual error such as this one in selecting options could result in ambiguity, delays, and possible financial losses. When you deal with huge data volumes, such operational errors are inevitable.

With Inforiver, you can enforce data integrity by specifying filters while configuring dropdowns. Please be aware that to use filters, the dimension (in this case, Region) needs to be added to the Inforiver and Lookup visuals.

Let’s look at the dropdown in action. With filters applied, notice how the options change dynamically based on the region.

5. Automatic cross-filtering

The lookup visual has the added capability to cross-filter data. The sample report shown below sources product data from a lookup visual. Notice how the product names change dynamically based on the product sub-category.

  • Power BI Edit interactions toggle needs to be enabled for cross-filtering to work correctly.

Disable the cross-filter option to pull all the data from the lookup visual, irrespective of the row dimension category in the matrix visual.

customer portal
imported
Download the ookup visual
Adding lookup visuals and assigning dimensions
Select the lookup visual name
Assigning the Label and ID
Creating filters
Options for Central
Options for East
Cross filtering
Disabling the cross filter