The new workspace experience is the future of workspaces in Power BI. Already it’s the default for new workspaces created in the service. Today, we wanted to announce our roadmap for workspace upgrade so you can plan ahead.
Let’s recap key milestones in the new workspace experience journey:
- The new workspace experience reached GA in April 2019
- Opt-in upgrade for workspace admins entered Public Preview in November 2019
Now, let’s look at what’s in the roadmap for workspace upgrade:
- Workspace upgrade general availability is coming soon
- Allowing Power BI Admins to block creation of classic workspace
- Allowing Power BI Admins to hide empty classic workspaces
- Allowing Power BI Admins to upgrade classic workspaces
- Deprecation of classic workspace creation in October 2020
- Tools for bulk upgrade of classic workspace for Power BI Admins
- Automatic upgrade of classic workspaces
Workspace upgrade general availability is coming soon
In the summer of 2020, opt-in workspace upgrade for workspace admins will reach general availability (GA). A banner at the top of the content list for classic workspaces will be shown to workspace admins, encouraging them to upgrade. This will still be an opt-in experience with no requirement to upgrade the workspace. The banner will continue to be shown until the workspace is upgraded.
Allowing Power BI Admins to block creation of classic workspaces
In the summer of 2020, we will introduce a Power BI tenant setting that allows Power BI admins to block creation of classic workspaces. When enabled for your organization, users won’t be able to create classic workspaces in the Power BI service or through API. Any newly created Office 365 Groups won’t create classic workspaces.
Existing classic workspaces are not affected by this setting and will continue to work as they do today.
When we add the block classic workspace creation setting, the default will be Disabled as shown in the screenshot. The Power BI Admin can opt-in to block classic workspace creation for their organization. Later in this blog we’ll describe how and when we plan to starting to block classic workspace creation by default.
Allowing Power BI Admins to hide empty classic workspaces
Many classic workspaces that are empty because they were created automatically when an Office 365 group was created. We will introduce a new Power BI tenant setting allowing Power BI Admins to hide these empty classic workspaces and to delete them. We expect this capability to release by October 2020.
Allowing Power BI Admins to upgrade classic workspaces
We will introduce a new option in the Power BI admin portal to upgrade classic workspaces. The Power BI admin will use the admin portal workspaces list to pick a workspace and upgrade it. We expect this capability to release by October 2020. Additionally, we’re evaluating the if we can provide an API for Power BI admins to upgrade workspaces and will update at a later time our roadmap for that capability.
This Power BI admin opt-in upgrade will have the same impacts as workspace admin-initiated opt-in upgrade. Notably, content packs will be removed as part of the upgrade.
Workspace admins will be notified that their workspace was upgraded by the Power BI admin.
Importantly, Power BI admins should take steps to educate workspace admins about any planned upgrades. It’s important that workspace admins follow the steps to take after upgrade.
Deprecation of classic workspace creation in October 2020
On October 1st, 2020, Power BI will start blocking the creation of classic workspaces for most tenants. For tenants in national clouds the same change will roll–out a few weeks later. Existing classic workspaces will continue to work without disruption.
When this rolls out, new classic workspaces will not be created for newly created Office 365 groups.
Effectively this will have the same behavior as if the Power BI admin disabled classic workspace creation through the tenant setting.
Tools for bulk upgrade of classic workspace for Power BI admins
Early in 2021, we plan to introduce tools for Power BI admins to bulk upgrade classic workspaces. These tools will enable Power BI admins to plan and control when and how quickly to upgrade all their classic workspaces.
Automatic upgrade of classic workspaces
We expect that in mid 2021 we will start to automatically upgrade all remaining classic workspaces to the new workspace experience. We won’t start the process until we believe the bulk-upgrade experiences provided to Power BI admins are reliable and we can address any feedback we receive from customers.
How to prepare for these important changes
Organizations should learn about the benefits and differences of the new workspace experience. We encouraged Power BI admins to work with workspace admins to upgrade classic workspaces.
Content packs have been deprecated for several years and they will be removed through the workspace upgrade process. Now’s the time to move to Power BI apps.
The options being introduced in the Power BI admin portal allow organizations to control when these changes occur for their tenants. We highly encourage Power BI admins to plan and communicate the changes to their organizations. This helps ensure there are no surprises when the Power BI service starts enforcing the changed behaviors described in this blog post.
Stay tuned for more announcements on this blog. We’ll provide more updates here so you’re informed and can plan ahead.
As always, we really appreciate your feedback and we know these changes can be significant for many organizations. We appreciate any comments on his blog or through our community. Feel welcome to contact your Microsoft account representative with questions as well.
Next steps:
Learn about the new workspace experience
Read our announcement of the new workspace experience GA
Read our announcement of classic workspace upgrade public preview