Column properties

Applies to: SQL Server Analysis Services Azure Analysis Services Fabric/Power BI Premium

This article describes tabular model column properties.

Note

Some properties are not supported in all compatibility levels.

Column properties

Advanced

Property Default Setting Description
Display Folder A single or nested folder for organizing columns in a client application field list.

Basic

Property Default Setting Description
Column Name The name of the column as it is stored in the model and as it is displayed in a reporting client field list.
Data Format Automatically determined during import. Specifies the display format to use for the data in this column. This property has the following options:

General

Decimal Number

Whole Number

Currency

Percentage

Scientific

After you set a data format, you can set properties that are specific to each format. For example, if you choose the Currency format, you can set the number of visible decimal places, choose the thousands separator, and choose the currency symbol.



If the column values contain images, see Representative Image.
Data Type Automatically determined during import. Specifies the data type for all values in the column.
Description A text description for the column.

In certain reporting clients, if an end-user places the cursor over this column in the field list, the description appears as a tooltip.
Hidden False Specifies whether the column is hidden from reporting client field lists.

Set this property to True to hide this column in the display. For example, columns that contain identifiers or keys are typically not useful to the end user.

If you hide a column from the reporting client, the field is not suppressed in the model data. The field is still visible if you create a query against the model. A hidden column can still be used for grouping or sorting.

The Hidden property does not provide any form of data security. To secure data, use row filters in Roles. For more information, see Roles.
Sort By Column Specifies another column to sort the values in this column. A relationship must exist between the two columns.

This value must be the name of an existing column. You cannot specify a formula or measure.
Unique Can be set to enforce uniqueness of values in the column. Always true for calculated columns, even if uniqueness is false.

Misc.

Property Default Setting Description
Encoding Hints Default Specifies encoding to optimize processing. Value encoding can improve query performance for numeric columns typically used in aggregations. Hash encoding is for group-by columns (often dimension-table values) and foreign keys. String columns are always hash encoded.

Reporting Properties

Property Default Setting Description
Default Image False Specifies which column provides an image that represents the row data (for example, a photo ID in an employee record).
Default Label False Specifies which column provides a display name to represent row data (for example, employee name in an employee record).
Image URL/Data Category (SP1) False Specifies the value in this column as a hyperlink to an image on a server. For example: http://localhost/images/image1.png.
Keep Unique Rows False Specifies which columns provide values that should be treated as unique even if they are duplicates (for example, employee first name and last name, for cases where two or more employees share the same name).
Row Identifier False Specifies a column that contains only unique values, allowing that column to be used as an internal grouping key.
Summarize By Default Specifies reporting client tools apply the aggregate function SUM for column calculations when this column is added to a Field list. To change the default calculation, select it from the dropdown list. This property applies only to columns of type that can be aggregated.
Table Detail Position No Default Field Set Specifies this column or measure can be added to a set of fields from a single table to enhance the table visualization experience in a reporting client.

Configure column property settings

  1. In the model designer, in a table, select a column.

  2. In the Properties window, click on a property, and then type a value or click the down arrow to select a setting option.

See also

Hide or freeze columns
Add columns to a table