Pragmatic Works Nerd News

Power BI Monthly Digest December 2020

Written by Devin Knight | Jan 04, 2021

Welcome to the latest Power BI Monthly Digest, where Pragmatic Works trainer Matt Peterson look at the latest additions to the ever-evolving Power BI platform. December features updates to Preview Features, mobile capabilities, and tools like embedding and admin rights.

> Preview Features Additions –
     • Information Protection – As you are building a report you can now add sensitivity labels before publishing. These labels will be inherited by anyone who downloads the file or tries to access the data.
     • DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Analysis Services – With this, you are now able to add multiple data sources. This creates a DirectQuery connection rather than a live connection.
     • Small Multiples – This tool will allow you to slice down visuals to smaller views. You can break visuals down by things like year, allowing you to single out data and sort in more concise ways. This helps to save space within the desktop view and gives you flexibility with your visuals.

> The Switch Function is now quicker, improvements to the processing speed make your results come back at a faster rate.

> The Data Rectangle Select now allows you to select up to 3500 points.

> Within Mobile Layout View, you can now see your Selection Pane. Because of this, you are now able to change your layer order of visuals and objects, giving you the freedom to move visuals to the front or back.

> Automatic Refresh for Analysis Services sources is available at the page level under the format section. You can turn on page refresh and select auto page refresh. The smallest increment of time you can select will be 30 minutes.

> Dataverse, formally known as CDS, received an Updated connector within the Power BI Desktop. Within “Get Data”, under the Power Platform Category, you will find Dataverse. Once you click on it and connect, you are good to go.

> The list view on the Home page of Power BI Service has been updated to change the navigation experience. It now shows you your recent projects.

> Admin rights - In settings under admin portal, within Tenant Settings you can now write a custom message to be seen when a project is published to the Power BI Service. You must have admin privileges to enable this feature.

> Android phones now support dark mode and anomaly detection

> Personal Bookmark and Persistent Filters are now supported when embedding your reports


Watch the video to see walkthroughs and step-by-steps of each new feature, plus hear insights from Matt. Let us know what you think about the latest additions in the comments below.

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