Welcome to the Power BI April 2025 Feature Summary!
There are a lot of exciting features this month, including mobile optimized report layouts, the best way to view data in the general availability of Power BI mobile apps, editing your semantic models with TMDL (Preview), and improved layouts for live editing semantic models. These are just a few of the updates this month.
Dive in to find out everything that April brings to Power BI!
Version number: v:2.142.928.0
Date published: 4/21/25
Contents
Community
We have a Power BI DataViz World Champion!
Have you ever built a Power BI report, in 20 minutes, live on stage in front of hundreds of people? That’s what Javier, Jon, Lakshmi, and Injae did at the first Power BI DataViz World Championships, live at the Fabric Community Conference in Vegas!
After deep deliberation by our judges, Jon Sandmann walked away as the first ever Power BI DataViz World Champion!!! Congratulations Jon!
General
Backward compatibility is impacted by Q&A setup updates
This month we introduced a version bump to the linguistic schema underlying Q&A setup tooling. After installing this recent April 2025 desktop release, if you continue to modify your linguistic schema in Q&A setup, such as synonyms, phrasings, or suggested questions, you will not be able to open the PBIX files with older versions of the Power BI Desktop.
Copilot and AI
Ad hoc calculation support for data questions now available in read mode
Last month we announced our addition of ad hoc calculation support to the Copilot capability for answering data questions from your model. This feature was only available from edit mode of reports using Copilot. This month we’ll be rolling out added support for read mode as well in the next few weeks!
To learn more, refer to the March Feature Summary or the Ad hoc calculations for data questions documentation.
Reporting
File picker enabled on by default in Power BI Desktop
In January, we announced an updated file picker experience in Power BI Desktop. With the April release of Power BI Desktop, the file picker will be enabled to be on by default.
If you would like to revert to the old file picker experience, you may do so by navigating to options and settings and deselecting the updated file picker experience from the list of preview items.
Mobile layout auto-create (Generally Available)
Mobile-optimized report layouts provide an optimal way to view data in Power BI mobile apps. Previously, creating such layouts required additional effort; however, this is no longer the case.
The mobile layout auto-creates is generally available, now you can generate a mobile-optimized layout with a click of a button! This feature allows you to easily create mobile-optimized layouts for any new or existing report page, saving you time.
When you switch to the mobile layout view in Power BI Desktop, if the mobile canvas is empty, you can generate a mobile layout just by selecting the Auto-create button.
The auto-create engine understands the desktop layout of your report and builds a mobile layout that considers the position, size, type, and order of the visuals that the report contains. It places both visible and hidden visuals, so if you have bookmarks that change a visual’s visibility, they will work in the automatically created mobile layout as well.
You can edit the automatically created mobile layout, so if the result is not exactly what you expected, you can tweak it to make it perfect for your needs. Think of it as a starting point you can use to shorten the way to that beautiful, effective, mobile-optimized report you envision.
To learn more about Mobile layout auto-create, check out the Automatic mobile layout creation documentation. Try it out and share your feedback!
Modeling
Live edit of semantic models in Direct Lake mode with Power BI Desktop – updates (Preview)
Improve layouts limitation
Coming soon, the changes you make to layouts for your Direct Lake model will persist and be displayed consistently between Desktop and the Service, specifically:
- Changes made to Direct Lake semantic model layouts in Desktop will be reflected when opening the same model in the Service.
- Changes made to Direct Lake semantic model layouts in the Service will be reflected when opening the same model for live editing in Desktop.
For more details on the feature, including requirements, considerations, and limitations can be found in the Direct Lake in Power BI Desktop (Preview) documentation. We greatly value your feedback on this feature and encourage you to share it using the Live edit Direct Lake Models feedback form or via the Power BI Community.
Semantic model changes with TMDL view (Preview)
TMDL view allows you to preview script changes by showing a preview of the semantic model before and after script execution as a TMDL code diff. This is particularly useful when copying scripts from others, allowing you to assess their impact before running them against your semantic model.
Clicking the Preview button next to Apply shows a TMDL diff of the semantic model before and after executing the TMDL script in the opened tab:
The fields in red and green highlight the changes; red for removed and changed lines and green for new changes.
The preview is read-only, but you can keep editing your script. To refresh the preview after changes, click Update Preview.
The top right toolbar lets you navigate code diffs, switch between inline or side-by-side views, hide unchanged regions, and close the preview.
Learn more about TMDL view in the Work with TMDL view in Power BI Desktop (Preview) documentation.
Azure Maps auto-zoom now includes reference layers
The Azure Maps Visual now includes an auto-zoom feature that automatically zooms into areas where reference layers are plotted. When users apply slicers, the visual will zoom directly into the filtered polygons, allowing for faster navigation and improved focus on relevant geospatial data. This enhancement significantly boosts efficiency and helps users quickly gain insights from their maps.
This will be the new default experience, but you can always turn it off using the new ‘Include reference layer’ option in the View card of the Map settings section of the formatting pane. For existing map visuals, you’ll need to enable the feature manually.
Get ready for new Azure Maps tenant settings (Coming Soon)
Beginning in June, Power BI will introduce new tenant settings for the Azure Maps visual, giving you more control over data residency and compliance. These more granular tenant settings will let you independently control:
- Whether data can be processed outside your tenant’s geographic region.
- The use of certified Microsoft Online Services sub processors (used by the selection tool).
However, to take advantage of these changes, there is an important step; your organization must be on the April version of Power BI Desktop (this release) or later.
If you’re still using an older version of Power BI Desktop in June, Azure Maps visuals will no longer work in your reports when viewing them in Desktop. Don’t wait—upgrade now to be ready for the enhanced governance controls and avoid disruptions.
Data connectivity
Connect to the Vertica database with the user-installed ODBC driver – updates (Preview)
On by default for Power BI Desktop (Preview)
In February 2025, we announced a new option to use the user-installed ODBC driver to connect to Vertica database. With the April release of Power BI Desktop, this option will be enabled by default, you will need to install the ODBC driver on your machine to use the Vertica database connector in Power BI Desktop.
If you would like to revert to the old built-in driver experience, you can navigate to ‘Options and settings’ and deselect the ‘Use user-installed Vertica ODBC driver’ option.
To learn more, refer to the Vertica database connector documentation.
Use the built-in driver to connect to the Oracle (Preview)
This month, we are introducing a new option for getting data from the Oracle database using a built-in Oracle driver, currently available in preview. This feature removes the necessity for users to install and manage the driver, allowing you to utilize the Oracle managed ODP.NET driver included with Power BI Desktop.
More details about this feature, including the configuration instructions, can be found in the Oracle database connector documentation.
Snowflake connector update
On by default for Power BI Desktop (Preview)
Starting from the March 2025 version of Power BI Desktop, the ‘New Snowflake connector implementation’ option is enabled by default, so that all the newly created connections utilize ADBC to connect to Snowflake. Your existing connections remain unchanged. We continue enhancing the connector based on user feedback.
To learn more, refer to the New Snowflake connector implementation (Preview) documentation.
Visualizations
Table with custom and grouped headers by JTA – a Data Scientist’s Visualization Tool
Transform your Power BI Tables – structure, simplify, succeed!
Overview
Take your Power BI tables to the next level with Table with Custom Headers by JTA, a powerful custom visual that enhances data presentation and organization.
This visual allows you to create structured tables while grouping columns under custom headers that act like categories, improving readability and making complex datasets easier to analyse.
Key features:
- Custom header grouping: Organize column headers into general and sub headers for better structure.
- Hierarchical row display: Present rows in a hierarchical format and control which levels to collapse or expand.
- Flexible column organization: Group columns under sub headers and main headers for improved clarity.
- Adjustable header visibility: Hide general headers while keeping sub headers visible.
- Table totals display: Show or hide totals for better summarization.
- Advanced formatting options: Customize background and font colors for specific headers.
- Display unit formatting: Adjust numerical values to suit your reporting needs.
Download Table with Custom and Grouped Headers by JTA for free: AppSource
Try it: Demo
Learn more about us: JTA The Data Scientists 
Financial Reporting Matrix by Profitbase now with comments!
Making financial statements with a proper layout has just become easier with the latest version of the Financial Reporting Matrix. Starting from version 8.1, you can now add comments to the cells, explaining the values to the readers.
Cells containing a comment will show an indicator like what you are used to seeing in Excel! The visual will also show comments indicator, marked with red, on how many comments are present with the current filter context.
Click the comment indicator, select a cell, and write your comment, it’s as easy as that.
The new version also includes:
- Support for Power BI Tooltips, including using Report pages as tooltips.
- Improved Conditional formatting options: name your formatting steps, and with the new ‘custom’ style option you are no longer limited by the number of unique styles you can apply.
- Data limit: Default has been 3,000 rows, now the developer is free to adjust that to a maximum of 30,000 rows. The tradeoff can be the performance of the visual – so use it with caution.
This is in addition to the already existing features of the Financial Reporting Matrix:
- Adding custom rows
- Applying company/customer specific themes
- Expand/collapse columns
- Conditionally hide columns
- + much more
Highlighted new features:
- Data limit
- Commenting
- Conditional formatting
- Tooltips – Report page
Check out the demo video
Get the visual from AppSource and find more videos here!
Drill Down Graph PRO by ZoomCharts
Visualize your graph-structured data in a slick and interactive way with Drill Down Graph PRO! This visual combine powerful data analysis capabilities with user-friendly UI, incredible configurability, and seamless cross-filtering.
- Graph data structure: Graph PRO will identify relationships between source nodes and target nodes and connect related nodes with links.
- Focus nodes: Simplify complex graphs by assigning ‘focus node’ status to specific nodes. You can then choose to initially display only focus nodes, allowing the user to expand them on-demand.
- Multiple layouts: Choose between five layout modes: Dynamic (force-directed), Big Data Dynamic, Hierarchy, Radial, and Static. You can also enable a toolbar button so users can switch layouts on-the-fly.
- Full customization: Enjoy full control over the look and feel of your graph, including navigation, legends, labels, nodes, links, tooltips, and more. You can also create nodes and link categories in data to apply separate appearance settings for each.
- Auras: Visually highlight node groups (even if they are not linked directly) with colorful auras.
- Data-driven customization: Use various optional fields to provide label and tooltip content; and apply customization rules to nodes and links (including color, shape, size, images and more).
TMap 3.0
The newly released TMap 3.0 has added new features for combining a symbol or chart with choropleth map to create symbol choropleth map or chart choropleth map.
Combining proportional symbols and choropleth Map into one map will help data professionals to explore insights at both regional and individual location level just from one visual.
Figure : Symbol Choropleth Map shows population for census metropolitan areas and their summation for each province in Canada.
Combining charts and choropleth map will help to explore spatial correlations among many variables through multivariate geovisualization.
Figure : Chart Choropleth Map to show relations between GDP and population across six continents.
A top marker layer, a linked polygon layer and 5 reference layers can be added to the TMap visual to make various thematic maps to explore geospatial and business intelligence. The data source for the linked polygon layer can be WKT (Well-Known Text) data in data model or built-in boundary data inside the visual or uploaded shape/geojson file.
Download in Microsoft AppSource and try it out today.
For more information on how to use this feature, check out these tutorials.
Lollipop Chart by Powerviz
The Powerviz Lollipop chart is a variation of a bar chart that uses lines and dots to represent data points. It is perfect for highlighting specific trends to help stakeholders make informed decisions.
Key features:
- Chart options: easily switch between vertical/horizontal chart.
- Marker style: choose from Shapes, Charts, Icons, Images, or upload a custom image.
- Reference lines/bands: add reference lines and bands to highlight values easily.
- Small multiples: split your visual into multiple smaller visuals.
- Fill patterns: highlight nodes with patterns or upload your own.
- Race chart: enhance the chart by adding animations to show data changes over time.
- Cut/clip axis: trim/adjust the axis to accommodate the outliers.
- Dynamic deviation: Analyze the deviation between two bars briefly.
- Conditional formatting: Easily find outliers by using rules for measures or categories based on rules.
- Templates: Choose from predesigned templates and save time.
Other features included are Error Bars, Preview Slider, Import/Export Themes, Data Colors with IBCS Support, Ranking, and more.
Business Use Cases: Sales Analysis, Financial Reporting, Market Research.
Try Lollipop Chart visual for FREE from AppSource
Check out all features of the visual: Demo_file
Step-by-step instructions: Documentation
YouTube Video: Video_Link
Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/
Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U
Strip Plot by Nova Silva
The Strip Plot is an essential tool for uncovering patterns in categorical and numerical data, allowing users to visualize the distribution of individual data points effectively. With our latest update, we’ve supercharged the Strip Plot with powerful new features that enhance clarity and flexibility.
What’s new?
- Jittering – Say goodbye to overlapping points! Jittering slightly shifts data points to improve visibility, ensuring that every value in your dataset is accounted for.
- Box plot – Combine summary statistics with raw data by overlaying a box plot on your strip plot. Now, you can easily spot medians, quartiles, and outliers while maintaining full visibility of individual data points.
- Vertical layout – Previously limited to horizontal orientation, the Strip Plot now supports a vertical layout, making it even more versatile for different analytical needs.
These enhancements empower users to gain deeper insights from their data, making trend identification and anomaly detection easier than ever. Try the updated Strip Plot in Power BI today and take your visual analytics to the next level! Download it now from the AppSource.
Questions or remarks? Visit us at: https://visuals.novasilva.com/.
Closing
That’s all for this month!
We hope that you enjoy the update! If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review.
As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next. We are looking forward to hearing from you!