Power BI Monthly Digest October 2020

Welcome to the latest Power BI Monthly Digest, where Pragmatic Works president Devin Knight and trainer Matt Peterson look at the latest additions to the ever-evolving Power BI platform. October is filled with minor but impactful updates, making us focus on the little things in life.

> One of the biggest changes is the new interface that pops up when you open Power BI Desktop, which was a blank canvas but now provides options and guidance. It features a sample data set that includes tutorials or the option to experiment on your own. 

> Once your data is loaded you can select or drag fields from the Fields pane onto the report canvas. This option is particularly beneficial to those new to the system.

> When opening a new report, you can now exit while it's still loading if you opened the wrong report. 

> While personalized visuals used to be a preview feature, they are now generally available. This allows a user to personalize a visual after it's been published out. You can also go to page settings and instead of having to change the settings for each individual visual you can change it so the entire page is on or off. Other updates focus on how you do the personalizing, such as more drag and drop capability, changing default summaries, and the option to set up personalized visuals in the service itself. 

> The lasso effect is now available on the tree map as a preview feature. 

> You can export data from the Q&A visual.

> In Dax, switch, nest, and if functions have been enhanced to provide quicker query results and visuals. 

> In direct query, you now have the ability to pass in dynamic parameters and make them accessible to end users. 

> Excel Connectors will find a region of cells on your spreadsheet and provide suggested tables.

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

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