Global Threshold Reference

Overview

The Global Threshold card decides what the visual shows when the table should not be drawn at all. It covers two situations, each with its own message:

An empty dataset — a page, report or slicer filter leaves the matrix without a single data row.
A test you define — typically "the base is below 30 respondents, do not publish these figures".

In both cases the table is replaced by a panel you control: message, alignment, font, text color, background and transparency.

Not to be confused with the Thresholds card

Thresholds works cell by cell — it warns on, or masks, individual values whose base is too small, and the table is still drawn. Global Threshold works on the whole visual: nothing is drawn at all, only the panel. Hence the name.

Replaces Clear on Empty dataset

This card supersedes the old Clear on Empty dataset toggle of the Table Contents card, which could only choose between a hard-coded "No data to display" message and a blank screen. See Coming from Clear on Empty dataset.

Scope

Global Threshold is available on CrossTable and CrossTable InCell Charts — same card, same properties, same behavior, same defaults. It is documented once here rather than twice; nothing on this page is specific to one of the two visuals.

Location: Format pane → Global Threshold card.

Properties

The empty-dataset message

Property	Description	Default
Empty Panel	Draws the panel when the dataset is empty. Switch it off to render strictly nothing in that case.	On
Message	Text drawn on the panel for an empty dataset. Leave it empty for a completely blank panel. Supports conditional formatting (fx).	`No Data to display`

The conditional message

Property	Description	Default
Conditional Message	Text drawn instead of the table when the test below is met. Leave it empty for a completely blank panel. Supports conditional formatting (fx).	`Not enough data to display`
Test if	Left operand — normally a measure bound through fx (a base, a count of respondents).	0
Is	The comparison: `>`, `=` or `<`.	`<`
To	Right operand — a constant, or a measure through fx.	0

Panel presentation (shared by both messages)

Property	Description	Default
Horizontal Alignment	Left, center or right.	Center
Vertical Alignment	Top, middle or bottom.	Middle
Font	Font family, size, and bold / italic / underline. The size supports conditional formatting (fx).	Segoe UI, 14 pt
Text Color	Message color. Supports conditional formatting (fx).	#333333
Background Color	Fill painted behind the message. Supports conditional formatting (fx).	#FFFFFF
Transparency	Background transparency, 0 % (opaque) to 100 % (invisible). Supports conditional formatting (fx).	100 %

:::note Why the background looks like nothing at first Transparency defaults to 100 %, so the panel is transparent out of the box and the report page shows through behind the message. Lower it to make Background Color visible. :::

Case 1 — An empty dataset

An empty dataset means the matrix reaches the visual with no data rows at all: a filter — page level, report level, a slicer, a cross-highlight — excludes every respondent or every category.

It is not:

blank or zero cells inside an otherwise populated table (that is Thresholds or Masking);
a missing field binding — that case still shows the usual "Please check that you have at least one Row and one column variable" message.

Whatever the card says, the table is never drawn on an empty dataset — no empty "shell" made of a column header and a Base row at 0 — and the Excel export button is never shown, since there would be nothing to export. Power BI is also told that rendering has completed, so the page does not stay stuck in a loading state and Export to PDF or Print does not wait on a visual that will never draw.

From there, Empty Panel decides:

On (default) — the panel is drawn: the background fill first, then Message at the chosen alignment, in the chosen font and color.
Off — nothing is drawn at all. The visual's frame stays in place, empty.

Case 2 — Your own test

The conditional message answers a different need: there is data, but it must not be published. A base of 12 respondents, a period still being collected, a segment too narrow to be significant — the figures exist, they simply should not be read.

The test reads as one sentence:

Test if (a measure) Is < To (a value)

When it holds, the table is not drawn — exactly as for an empty dataset — and Conditional Message is displayed on the panel instead.

Setting it up

Write the measure that carries the number to test, for instance the unweighted base of the table:
```
Respondents = COUNTROWS ( Answers )
```
In the Global Threshold card, click the fx button of Test if and bind it to that measure.
Set Is to < and To to your publication threshold, for example 30.
Type the text in Conditional Message:
```
Sample too small to be published
```

Below 30 respondents, the table disappears behind the message; at 30 or above, it renders normally.

The message can carry the figure

Conditional Message also carries an fx button, so it can come from a measure and quote the number that triggered it:

Threshold Message =
"Sample too small to be published (" & [Respondents] & " respondents)"

There is no toggle — the test is the switch

The conditional message has no on/off property: it applies whenever the test is met. With the shipped defaults — Test if 0, Is <, To 0 — the test is false (0 is not below 0), so the feature stays off until you bind or change something.

Keep that in mind when choosing the operator: = with both operands left at 0 would be true, and the visual would show the conditional message on every page.

Which message wins

The two cases never compete: the test is only evaluated when the dataset has rows. An empty dataset always shows Message (or nothing, if Empty Panel is off), never the conditional one.

This also removes an awkward edge: on an empty dataset a measure normally returns BLANK(), so a test built on a base measure could not be trusted there anyway.

Translated messages

Left untouched, Message shows No Data to display and Conditional Message shows Not enough data to display. In both cases the visual replaces the text at render time with the translation matching the report's language — the same ten languages the visuals ship with (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese).

As soon as you type your own text, that text is used verbatim, exactly as typed, in every language. A multilingual report therefore either keeps the default messages, or drives them with a measure:

Empty Message =
VAR ReportLanguage = SELECTEDVALUE ( Languages[Code], "en" )
RETURN
    SWITCH (
        ReportLanguage,
        "fr", "Aucune donnée pour cette sélection",
        "de", "Keine Daten für diese Auswahl",
        "No data for this selection"
    )

:::caution A measure often returns BLANK on an empty dataset An fx rule is evaluated in the visual's own filter context — the very context that has just been emptied. A measure built on the fact table (a count of respondents, a base) typically returns BLANK() there, and Message then falls back to the typed constant. Build it on a table the filter does not empty (a language or parameter table, a disconnected table), or wrap it in COALESCE / IF ( ISBLANK ( … ) , … ). Conditional Message is not affected: it is only ever shown while the table has rows. :::

Text Color, Background Color, Transparency and the font size accept rules as well, so the panel can change appearance with the situation — a neutral gray for "no collection this month", a warning color for a base below the publication threshold.

Coming from Clear on Empty dataset

The old toggle lived on the Table Contents card and had the opposite polarity. The mapping is:

Old — Clear on Empty dataset	New — Empty Panel	Result
Off (default)	On (default)	The localized "No data to display" message — same as before, now stylable
On	Off	Nothing at all — same as before

:::warning The old value is not carried over The removed setting is a clean cut: reports that had Clear on Empty dataset switched on now fall back to the new default, which shows the message. Switch Empty Panel off in those reports to get the blank screen back. :::

Notes

The panel never intercepts clicks: pointer events pass through, so the report page keeps behaving normally underneath.
The About icon, the ⚙ gear icons of the editor-only editors, and the Powered by Socio Data Management watermark of the Free edition remain visible above the panel. See Editions.
Messages accept line breaks and wrap on the width of the visual; text that exceeds the available height is clipped rather than overflowing.
The panel is cleared at the start of every render, so it can never linger over a table that has data again.
Data fields stay bound in both cases, and the visual keeps its position and size on the page: as soon as the filters let rows through, or the test stops holding, the table comes straight back — nothing is lost.

Overview​

Scope​

Properties​

The empty-dataset message​

The conditional message​

Panel presentation (shared by both messages)​

Case 1 — An empty dataset​

Case 2 — Your own test​

Setting it up​

There is no toggle — the test is the switch​

Which message wins​

Translated messages​

Coming from Clear on Empty dataset​

Notes​