Power BI November 2023 Feature Summary
There is a lot going on at Microsoft at the moment.? Not least Microsoft Fabric is generally available as of this week.? More on that to come in another post.
Power BI is part of Fabric of course and this month heralds some significant changes and some great features.? I have highlighted a few that I believe are important or interesting you can read the full blog and watch the video here:
Reporting
Button slicer?
This can certainly make your buttons look more attractive but they could become distracting?? Also ask yourself whether you need a button or is drill through the answer? Remember less is often more!?
Reference Labels?
These look very interesting and could overcome some of the limitations with KPI’s.? I am not sure how they have managed to add these little arrow indicators but probably done with DAX and conditional formatting.? I shall be looking into it!
On-object Interaction Updates
This continues to get attention and they are listening to feedback.? We can now have panels side by side again.
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Narrative visual with Copilot?
At Microsoft Ignite this week CoPilot was front and centre and we will see it appearing everywhere over time.? What it can do is fascinating and impressive but there are “buts” to consider.? It is in preview and you cannot edit what it produces even if you think it is wrong. These things will change I am sure but please be wary for the time being.
Modeling
Datasets renamed to semantic models
I balked at this to start with but it actually makes sense and it is better terminology.? Sometimes we just don’t like change!
DAX query view to write and run DAX queries on your model
This one is the biggy in my opinion.? Power BI Desktop is now a proper code editor and we are less reliant on external tools such as DAX Studio.? They still have their place but the fact that we can format our DAX, evaluate it and create multiple measures in one code block are very welcome features!? I don’t know if this same functionality exists in the data warehouse experience in Fabric yet but I suspect (or hope) it should arrive soon.
Service
Explore
This is a new way for business users or analysts to visually explore the data in a semantic model (previously dataset) in the service.? It’s like a lightweight report builder that may appeal to some that don’t know their way around Power BI Desktop or how to build reports in the service.? I cannot see a reason for me to use it though.
So much to keep up to speed with in Power BI and Fabric, I am still holding the reins (just)!? I will get back to you as soon as I can with more news regarding Fabric!