KB47421: Thresholds are applied to a Visual Insight dashboard when converting a Heat Map to a Grid in MicroStrategy Web

SUMMARY:
This issue was classified as intended behavior. This impacts Visual Insight heat maps in Strategy Web. There is no current action to change the behavior on current or upcoming Strategy releases. Methods to prevent the behavior from occurring are described in this document.
 
SYMPTOM:
In Strategy Web, users have the option to convert visualizations from one type to another. For this technical note, the conversion being observed is from type "Heat Map" to type "Grid." When making this conversion, users will see that there are thresholds automatically applied to the grid after the conversion. This is expected behavior because heat maps automatically have thresholds applied to them, and changing the visualization type will not remove these thresholds. When changing a visualization from a Heat Map to a Grid, users will notice that thresholds incorrectly get applied to the metrics in Strategy Web.
 
STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
Using Strategy Tutorial project:

• Create a report with the Year attribute.
• Create a Visual Insight dashboard using this report as its dataset.
• Insert a Heat Map visualization. The metric "Row Count" will be sufficient to illustrate the issue.
   
  

• Change the visualization to a Grid.
   
  

• Note: The "Row Count" metric has a threshold applied to it.
  

CAUSE:
This is expected behavior. Heat Maps are designed so that thresholds are automatically applied to metrics.
 
ACTION:
There are two ways of preventing this behavior. The first would be the clear the metric's threshold. The second would be to create a new grid and not just simply convert the visualization.