Welcome to the first edition of the Power BI New features series.
In this newsletter we look at February 2023 Power BI features introduced by Microsoft.
In summary there are 30 new features categorised as follows:
Let's now look at each feature broken down into different categories.
I've included read more links where appropriate as some contain images and additional links.
Conditional formatting base on string fields
- Power BI now allows conditional formatting based on string fields
- This feature can be accessed through the same dialog as other conditional formatting options in the formatting pane
- Users can now use First and Last options to summarize string fields and write logic around them
- Comparators like "is," "starts with," and "ends with" have been added to the conditional formatting dialog
- These comparisons check fields against inputs for exact character matches, including case-sensitivity.
Smart Narrative visual summary icon
- Power BI has added an optional feature to the Smart Narrative technology.
- This feature adds an icon to the visual header that triggers an on-demand summary of the visual contents.
- The feature is intended to make the visual more accessible and can announce results to any assistive technology.
- Users can enable the feature in the format pane for individual visuals or add it to custom theme files for selected visual types.
- It is important to note that the new icon has the same limitations as the existing Smart Narrative visual.
Formatting image width in table and matrix
- Power BI now allows users to individually format image dimensions in table and matrix visuals.
- Previously, there was only one control for image dimensions, which affected both the height and width of images, resulting in square-shaped images regardless of their actual dimensions.
- This made it difficult to properly size images, especially when they were wider than they were tall, leading to layout problems and wasted vertical space.
- With this new feature, users can change the height and width of images separately, providing more flexibility and control over image size.
- This feature should help users create more visually appealing and space-efficient table and matrix visuals.
- A sample image is included to demonstrate the difference this feature makes in practice.
Update your base theme in Power BI
- Power BI Desktop now includes an easy way to update custom themes.
- Previously, custom theme authors may not see updates to their reports or fixes to issues due to new defaults for formatting settings in the new base theme, which do not propagate to some authors with custom themes.
- Updating the theme required a cumbersome process of opening up the theme gallery, switching to one of the default themes, and then switching back to their custom theme.
- With the new feature, users can update outdated themes by entering the "Customize current theme" menu from the theme dropdown in the View tab of the ribbon.
- A banner will appear at the top of the out-of-date themes, encouraging the user to update to the latest base theme.
- Clicking "Update theme" will show the changes, which can then be applied when ready.
- Users should note that updating the theme will change all default behaviors that have changed since the current theme was created, and specific behaviors that visuals relied on may also change.
- It is important to check that the report still functions as expected after updating the base theme.
- Power BI is introducing a new feature to validate custom theme files upon import to prevent errors that can occur during the creation process.
- Creating custom themes can be challenging, with many visuals and formatting properties to configure, which can lead to mistakes in authoring the theme JSON.
- The new feature will ensure that Power BI can read the entire contents of the theme file and if it finds fields it doesn't understand, it will show a message indicating that the theme file is invalid.
- The user will be invited to re-import with a corrected theme file.
- Power BI will publish the schema it uses to check theme files in a public location, updating it automatically whenever it changes in Power BI.
- This will help ensure that theme files are always up to date and prevent any potential errors during the import process.
Text box visual indentation
- Power BI has introduced support for indentation in text box visuals.
- The new feature allows users to adjust the indentation of specific lines of their text boxes.
- Users can use the increase and decrease indent buttons in the formatting popup next to the text box or the Tab or Shift+Tab keys to achieve this effect.
- The feature provides users with greater control over their text formatting, making it easier to create more visually appealing text box visuals with better organization and hierarchy.
- A sample image has been provided to demonstrate the feature in action.
New accessible report themes
- Power BI has added new accessible report themes to promote the creation of accessible reports with good contrast across their colors.
- The new accessible themes can be found in a new section labeled "Accessible themes" in the theme dropdown in the View tab of the ribbon.
- By providing accessible report themes, Power BI makes it easier for authors to create reports that are more accessible and easier to read for all users.
- This feature is particularly important for users with visual impairments or other disabilities that can affect their ability to read or interact with reports.
Customise visible pages in the Page navigator visual
- Power BI now allows users to customize which report pages are visible within the Page navigator visual.
- Users can exclude specific pages by turning the toggle for that page to Off in the Show card in the Pages section of the formatting pane.
- Users can also turn the Show all by default toggle to Off in the Options card, which will turn all pages within the Show card to Off.
- From there, users can turn back on the specific pages they want visible.
- This feature should make it easier for users to customize their report pages and make their reports more streamlined and user-friendly.
- A sample image has been provided to demonstrate the feature in action.
- Power BI has introduced Quick Create SDK, a new form of embedded analytics that allows users to embed an interactive data exploration and report creation experience in their applications.
- The solution provides users with an experience similar to the integrations in Dynamics 365 and SharePoint.
- Quick Create SDK should enable users to more easily integrate Power BI into their applications and provide a more seamless user experience.
- More details can be found in Power BI's full announcement post.
New DAX functions: LINEST and LINESTX
- Power BI has introduced two new statistical DAX functions: LINEST and LINESTX.
- These functions perform linear regression to calculate a straight line that best fits the given data and return a table describing that line.
- The LINEST and LINESTX functions are especially useful in predicting unknown values given known values.
- Both functions return a single-row table describing the line and additional statistics, such as slopes, intercepts, standard errors, and the coefficient of determination.
- The difference between the two functions is that LINEST expects columns of known X and Y values to be provided, while LINESTX expects a table and expressions to be evaluated for each row of the table to obtain the X and Y values.
- Power BI provides an example to demonstrate the use of these functions, which involves predicting total sales based on gross national product per capita.
- Users can learn more about these functions by visiting their documentation pages: LINEST and LINESTX.
- This new feature should enable users to perform more complex statistical analysis in Power BI and make more accurate predictions based on their data.
New 'Get Data' experience in the Power BI Service
- Power BI has removed the older "Get Data" page in the Power BI service and replaced it with new, comparable features available within workspaces.
- Users can upload a file to Power BI using the Upload option, which lets them upload files from their local computer or connect to files on OneDrive or a SharePoint site.
- The New > Dataset option in the workspace allows users to create a dataset from Excel or CSV data, and takes them to a new page with options to create a dataset off an Excel, CSV, or pasting in data.
- Once the dataset is created, users will be taken to the dataset's details page in the Data hub.
- These changes should help streamline the process of creating and managing datasets in Power BI, making it easier for users to access comparable features within workspaces.
- Power BI has released a denser version of scorecards called the Compact view.
- The compact view doubles the number of metrics that can be viewed on the screen by removing the spacing between metrics and padding within a metric.
- The compact view is accessible through the view selector in the scorecard header.
- The compact view is responsive, adjusting smoothly to various screen sizes and supports resizing of columns.
- All functionality that is available in the list view of the scorecard is also available in the compact view except editing and creating a new metric, which can only be done in the list view.
- In the next couple of weeks, Power BI will add two new settings in the column settings pane to customize the layout: text wrapping for metric name and horizontal scroll.
- Toggling on the horizontal scroll option will allow users to navigate left to right until they reach the final column, while turning it off will leave off the columns that don't fit on one screen without scrolling.
- Linked metrics allow displaying the same metric on multiple scorecards across different workspaces
- Improvements were made to linked metrics in February
- Parent-child relationships and the order of the metrics from the source scorecard are now preserved in the destination scorecard when linking multiple metrics at once
- "Set For All" option can be used to apply permissions to descendant metrics on the source scorecard, even if there are linked metrics in between the parent and descendants.
- Last year, a Follow Metric functionality was introduced to quickly access metrics and stay up to date on their activity through Teams notifications.
- Based on customer feedback, the icon for this functionality has been changed to an alert icon.
- The new icon is intended to better convey the association with notifications and improve the user experience.
- The change should make it easier for users to understand the purpose of the Follow Metric functionality.
Draft Paginated Reports Formatted Table authorising experience
- An authoring experience for paginated reports has been introduced, with accessible navigation, move and resize, and grand totals.
- Additional improvements for paginated reports and formatted table are being introduced this month.
- The improvements will enhance the capabilities of the formatted table feature for organizing and displaying data in paginated reports.
- No specific details about the new improvements have been provided in th
Parameter Pane for Paginated Reports
- Paginated reports frequently use parameters, with 70% of users utilizing them.
- Accessibility improvements have been made to support screen readers and keyboard navigation.
- The date picker now includes "Go to today" and month and year views for easier date selection.
- Dropdown list values can now be resized, which improves usability for longer values.
- Performance improvements have been made for parameters with long lists.
- Additional information about parameters can be found in the documentation.
Create a Paginated report from a datamart
- A new feature allows customers to create a paginated report directly from a datamart.
- There are two ways to access this feature: through the context menu of a datamart or through the Data Hub by clicking on the datamart to open its details.
- This feature is designed to make it easier for customers to create paginated reports using data from datamarts.
Capacity planning for Paginated reports
- Customers who plan to migrate their enterprise on-premises Business Intelligence reports to Power BI should plan their Premium capacity to optimize the performance of their paginated reports.
- A capacity document and other resources are available to help customers choose the right capacity for their needs.
- A migration guidance document and new migration tool are available to assist customers in migrating their reports to Power BI.
- A user research panel is available for customers to provide feedback and suggestions for improving paginated reports.
- The announcement of support for paginated reports in Power BI Pro was made at the PASS Data Community Summit.
TypeScript support in the background developer sandbox
- TypeScript is now available in the Power BI embedded developer sandbox, in addition to JavaScript.
- The Power BI embedded playground provides access to various resources related to Power BI embedded, including the developer sandbox, showcases, and learning materials.
- The developer sandbox allows users to embed their own reports and interact with the Power BI client APIs to see instant results.
- Users can switch to TypeScript in the sandbox by selecting the language from a dropdown menu in the upper right corner.
- The selected language will be saved if the user is logged in and chooses to save their code in the playground.
For those who refer to watch the video:
Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst
The feature summary content in this article includes responses generated by ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI. The responses are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, which allows for non-commercial use of the content as long as attribution is given to OpenAI and any modifications are shared under the same license.
While the responses generated by ChatGPT are based on publicly available information and are intended to be informative and helpful, they should not be considered a substitute for professional advice or consultation. The feature summary content in this article is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or consultation. Any reliance you place on the content in this article is strictly at your own risk.
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