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Power BI March 2022 Feature Summary

Headshot of article author Jeroen ter Heerdt

Senior Program Manager
17 mars, 2022

Welcome to the March 2022 update. We are happy to announce a couple new features this month! How about error bars for line charts and dynamic format strings support for all chart elements? Also, we have some updates to the Azure Maps visual and Sensitivity labels, datasets hub and Power BI Goals. There is more to explore, please read on.

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Reporting

Data connectivity and preparation

Service

Embedded Analytics

Visualizations

Other

Check out the video below for this month’s summary:

 

Reporting

 

New Format Pane  – general availability coming in May

The new format pane has been in preview since November and was turned on by default for users in the last month’s release. As a heads up, we plan to make it Generally Available in May which means users will no longer be able to switch back to the old format pane. Please submit your feedback directly in the comments of this blog post or add to the discussion via our “share feedback” link next to the preview switch so we can continue capture any issues you encounter before general availability.

Error bars 

You can now add error bars to your line charts to visualize the uncertainty in your data! Uncertainty is an important aspect to data, especially in scientific disciplines and other fields where the displayed value of a point needs to be contextualized by the range of its possible values. With this new feature, you can specify upper and lower bounds to the values on your line chart and customize the way the uncertainty is visualized on your chart.

To begin, make sure that the error bars preview feature is enabled by going to File > Options > Preview features and making sure the error bars checkbox is checked.  Also, please make sure you enabled ‘New format pane” feature as “Error bars” functionality is available for the New format pane only. Then create a line chart and add a measure for which you have upper and lower bound fields to display.

Chart, line chart Description automatically generated

In the Analytics pane, you will see a new Error bars card. At the top, you’ll see a dropdown to select the measure to which you would like to add error bars. Beneath it, you’ll find options to enable error bars for this measure, add upper and lower bound fields, and indicate how the upper and lower bounds relate to the measure. Absolute means that the fields contain the exact value of the upper or lower bound, while Relative means that the fields contain the difference between the upper or lower bound and the measure. For example, if at one point my measure has a value of 60, an upper bound of 90, and a lower bound of 45, my upper bound field in absolute terms would be 90 and my lower bound 45, while my upper bound in relative terms would be 30 while my lower bound would be -15. Choose the option which suits the format of your upper and lower bound fields.

By default, these intervals will be represented by a vertical line with horizontal caps on either end.

You can also represent your uncertainty in other ways, like with lines, shade areas, and markers. Turn them on or off and format them to your liking in their associated sub-cards.

Hovering over a point will show the values of the nearby error bars in a tooltip:

Dynamic format strings now supported for all chart elements

Reports with AS data sources can provide dynamic format strings, or cell-level formatting, to customize the formatting of their data. Reports with calculation groups will also convert regular format strings into dynamic format strings. We’ve gotten feedback over time that these dynamic format strings were applying inconsistently across a number of different visuals, including the gauge visual and some cases of categorical bar charts. We know that this inconsistency has affected decisions you’ve made around report design, so we’re highlighting here that after the numerous changes we made last month, categorical visuals should all support dynamic format strings. Here’s an example of how a gauge visual might display a value string with commas to separate thousands before the changes:

And here’s how it does now:

Updates to the Azure Maps visual 

This month, we’ve updated the Azure Maps visual with two powerful new capabilities: geocoding and pie chart layers. To try the features out, you’ll first need to enable the Azure Map visual in File > Options and Settings > Options > Preview Features > Azure map visual.

Geocoding

Most Power BI users work with data that contains geographic information not stored in latitude-longitude format. This data might be the addresses of a business’s retail storefronts, for example, or even simply the names of the countries it operates in. The Azure maps visual now allows you to supply this more intuitive geographic data directly to Power BI. Just drag your fields into the Location field well, and Azure Maps will perform the geocoding for you, translating your data into lat/long coordinates. The visual supports geocoding for country or region, state or province, city, county, postal code, and address data. As with our Map and Filled Map visuals, you can also drill down on multiple fields in the Location field well.

Pie charts in Azure maps

This month, you can also turn your bubble layers into pie charts in order to visualize the proportions by which your data at each location among different categories. This allows you to partition the data in your bubble layers across a new dimension. For example, you can use pie charts to understand market share of each of your products in a region, with the bubble size representing total market size. You can also leave the size constant and use pie charts to demonstrate just regional distribution, like showing the distribution of education levels across people in each state.

To render a pie chart, drag a categorical field into the Legend field well of your map.

Sensitivity labels update

The 2 GB file-size limitation on saving labeled and protected PBIX files has been removed. PBIX files over 2 GB in size can now be saved with a sensitivity label that carries protection.

Multi-row card selection

Last month, we announced that you can now select rows in your multi-row card to cross highlight and cross filter other visuals in your report. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this feature did not ship with the last release, but it is now available with the March release. Thank you for your patience and for your feedback in bringing this issue to attention!

Data connectivity and preparation

 

BitSight Security Ratings (New Connector)

Introducing BitSight Security Performance Management for Power BI!

BitSight is a security ratings provider, surfacing rich data on the cybersecurity performance of companies. BitSight for Security Performance Management (SPM) enables CISOs to measure, monitor, manage, and report on their cybersecurity program performance over time, and to facilitate a universal understanding of cyber risk across their organization. This connector enables organizations to easily pull the BitSight data into Microsoft Power BI for further analysis and dashboard creation. The dashboarding and analysis generated in PowerBI can then be leveraged in executive reporting, tracking remediation progress, combining the BitSight data with other security data sources to gain a more complete view of their cybersecurity program performance over time and help bring universal understanding of cyber risk to stakeholders, as well as other use cases.

Bloomberg Enterprise Data and Analytics (Connector Update)

The Bloomberg Enterprise Data and Analytics connector has been updated. Here are notes from the Bloomberg team.

“This release significantly improves the usability of our connector in the Power BI service environment. After upgrading, firm administrators will only need to update their dataset credentials once a year, instead of daily.”

Anaplan (Connector Update)

The Anaplan connector has been updated. Here are notes from the Anaplan team.

This updated version of Anaplan connector for Power BI includes multiple enhancements. The connector has been updated to support Anaplan data exports up to 5GB in size. This is an increase from 1GB in the previous version of the connector. Users can now also re-run Anaplan exports without a 10-min delay. Connector has been updated to allow re-run of exports as determined by user.

Summary of updates:

  • Connector expanded to support 5GB exports
  • 10-min delay between re-running exports has been removed.

 

FactSet Analytics (Connector Update)

The FactSet connector has been updated. Here are notes from the FactSet team.

V1.2 1 New Datastore API support 2-Support Security in Component Detail for PA & Vault 3-New Navigator layout.

AssembleViews (Connector Update)

The AssembleViews connector has been updated. Here are notes from the AssembleViews team.

Update View Date parameter to accept Date, DateTime, and DateTimeZone types. For Date and DateTime types the local time zone of the executing machine will be assumed. Include query parameter when retrieving project views to reduce load time.

Service

 

Datasets hub improvements

The datasets hub (accessible from Power BI’s navigation pane) shows you all the datasets that you have access to, and also any endorsed datasets that have been set as discoverable so you can find them and request access.

The All tab is sorted by the time you last visited the dataset, either by opening the dataset details page or by opening a report that is built on top of the dataset.

The My datasets tab includes all the datasets that you are the owner of.

As the go-to place for data discovery, one of the main purposes of the datasets hub is to help users find high quality data and reuse it for their own needs.

With this in mind, we made some changes to the datasets hub tabs – now there is a new Trusted in your org tab that focuses exclusively on your organization’s trusted datasets – these are the endorsed datasets.

When you select the Trusted in your org tab, you’ll see a list of all the endorsed datasets in your organization. The certified datasets are listed first, followed by the promoted datasets.

Power BI Goals enhancements

Custom statuses in Scorecards

We’re excited to announce the release of custom statuses for Power BI Goals! Statuses are an integral part of goal tracking, and with this update, you can customize your statuses so they’re exactly right for your organization.

In edit mode, simply click the settings gear, and enter the section called statuses to start customizing your scorecard statuses. Here you can create new statuses, rename existing ones, and customize the color.

With this update, you can customize the statues to the terminology you use every day in your organization, ensuring everyone in your team easily understands – making it easier than ever for Goals to work seamlessly for your organization.

Power BI Goals Teams notification

Last month we released Teams notifications to help you stay up to date about the goals you’re responsible for. This month, we are releasing a few more notifications for goal and check-in updates.

Goal update notifications:

Goal update notifications are sent when a goal is updated. The goal owners receive a Teams notification from the user updating the goal if they have the Power BI app for Teams installed. They’ll get a notification right in the activity feed and as a banner (toast card). When they click the notification, the scorecard opens and the Details pane for the goal is shown. This notification will be sent on any of the manual updates to the goal such as changes to goal name, start/due date, adding or removing owners, adding, or changing status rules.

Goal check-in notifications:

The owners of the goal get a goal check-in activity feed notification when a user adds a new check-in or edits an existing check-in. This notification will be sent when a value or status is either added or edited directly on the goal or through the check-in experience in the details pane.

Note that the recipient needs to have the Power BI app for Microsoft Teams installed and have access to the corresponding scorecards to get these notifications. Read the documentation to learn more.

Embedded Analytics

 

 Service principal profiles in Power BI Embedded

Until now, ISVs and other Power BI Embedded app owners were able to deploy the embedded solution to production by using one of the following 2 options:

  • Create one service principal for all their customers, where they have a Power BI limit of 1,000 workspaces per each service principal
  • Create one service principal per each customer, where they have the burden of managing thousands of service principals

Now, we’re happy to introduce a new method that allows a much larger number of customers per one service principal by introducing a new entity named service principal profile. Each service principal profile can administer a customer, and the number of profiles per service principal can reach hundreds of thousands.

Service principal profiles allow the ISV to build a scalable application that enables better customer data isolation and establishes tighter security boundaries between customers.

Using service principal profiles enables the ISV application to host multiple customers on a single Power BI tenant. Each profile represents one customer in Power BI. In other words, each profile creates and manages datasets, reports, dashboards, and other artifacts that are connected only to one specific customer’s data. Learn more

Embedding paginated reports – support for SSO datasources (delayed till April 2022)

With Power BI embedded analytics, ISVs and customers can create Power BI content that displays paginated reports in a fully integrated and interactive application. They can embed paginated reports using the solution that works best for them, embed for your customers, or embed for your organization.

Until now, datasources that require single sign-on (SSO) were not supported, and now we’re happy to update that we’ve added support for SSO data sources including Power BI datasets having SSO data sources. Read more

Visualizations

 

New visuals in AppSource

The following are new visuals this update:

 

Charticulator visual now certified

As of version 1.4.1, the Charticulator custom visual is now certified!

With this update, we’ve also made a few changes and bugfixes:

  • fixed an issue with tick formatting in axes with the Date data type
  • fixed an issue with text mapping for columns with the Date data type
  • added support for number of ticks in numerical axes
  • added a dropzone for tick data for numerical axes
  • fixed an issue with the “sort by another column” panel
  • added auto-updating for values in gradient scales

 

Drill Down Donut PRO by ZoomCharts

Drill Down Donut PRO was designed to guarantee the best end user experience. All interactions take place on the chart itself without hidden controls, thus ensuring a quick and easy data exploration experience. Enjoy intuitive cross-chart filtering aided by smooth animations. Control every aspect of the chart through extensive customization, and even select from multiple chart types (donut, pie, gauge).

Main features include:

  • Adjustable “Others” slice – set the number of visible slices and group the rest.
  • On-chart interactions – no need to learn hidden controls.
  • Custom tooltips – select ZoomCharts custom tooltip or Power BI built-in tooltip.
  • Full customization – customize every slice, label, and legend.
  • Desktop and mobile device navigation – explore charts the same way on any device.

Popular use cases:

  • Sales and marketing – measuring campaign performance and research results.
  • Human resources – staff composition, salary distribution, performance data.
  • Accounting and finance – income and expense analysis, billings, creditors, and debtors.
  • Project management – risk distribution, resource allocation.

To evaluate Drill Down Donut PRO on your own, get it now from AppSource. Learn more about Drill Down Donut PRO. If you would like to read more in detail, check out our blog post.

Please watch this video to get more information about Drill Down Donut PRO visual.

graphomate matrix 2021.4

Level up your tables in reports with the graphomate matrix. Design the layout down to the smallest detail. In addition, graphomate matrix enables both hierarchical and tabular (Crosstab) views. Hierarchies can also be used in the columns and additional columns with their own calculations can be added.

Here is a small selection of useful settings which help you to

  • Apply Scenarios in column headers
  • Create different types of charts in the cells (bar charts, deviation charts, sparklines)
  • Align your table design according to IBCS
  • Set the Number formatting for each cell (Psst: a new format for displaying seconds in hh:mm is available now)
  • Quick Access to the graphomate property sheet (GPS) via the gear wheel

With the new release version, we have improved a lot under the hood and thus shortened the charging and added another visualization type called ‘sparklines’.

People can process patterns more easily than pure text and numerical values. Therefore, sparklines in the cells are a good way to provide information about the temporal behavior of a kpi.

Benefit from the seamless integration of our custom visuals and use filters and slicers side by side with the standard visuals. Go ahead and try the graphomate matrix by downloading it from the AppSource. Detailed documentation.

Strip Plot by Nova Silva

Most charts will force you to summarize or categorize data before it is displayed. This can hide important details and may be misleading. The Strip Plot shows all your data observations in one go without hiding important details. It shows each data point on a single continuous scale.

You give us excellent feedback which allows us to further improve this visual. Based on your feedback we just released version 2 with several exciting enhancements.

You could already add numeric values, but now you can also use dates on the x-axis. The x-axis has also been enhanced with the optional Zoom-Slider.

Each visual in Power BI has three different panes: Fields, Format & Analytics. The Analytics pane allows you to add reference lines to your visual (like: fixed value, median, average, max, etc.) In version 2 you can use this functionality with the Strip Plot.

All functionality of the Strip Plot is available through the standard Power BI interface: NO need to learn any new interface.

Don’t hesitate and try the Strip Plot now on your own data by downloading it from the AppSource.

Questions or remarks? Visit us at: https://visuals.novasilva.com.

accoPLANNING by Accobat

Enable writeback for any PowerBI model and use PowerBI for planning and forecast.

With this visual you can now writeback numbers, text and dates on any existing or new PowerBI model. Check out the new advanced features like splashing numbers from an aggerated level to all leaf levels and even splash the numbers relative according to another measurers in you model.

Key new functionalities:

Transaction keys

  • Using transaction keys are now a possibility to get a better coherent and valid data model.
  • This means you can have a business orientated description in the grid and slides but the writeback table are fill out with the corresponding key.

Calculate further on existing numbers

  • You can now add calculate on top of existing numbers or other measures.
  • This is very powerful when you want to do a potential increase on actual numbers as basis for you forecast.

Read only cells

  • You can now lock cell for typing and splashing.
  • This is useful when you want to lock part of a dataset or certain cells for changing the numbers.
  • With the accoPLANNING visual, you combine the planning and reporting process in PowerBI. For more information, visit our website. Please go ahead and download accoPLANNING visual from the AppSource.

 

Other

 

Quickly create reports from SharePoint document libraries

Previously, we launched an integration in SharePoint lists that let you, with just a few clicks, automatically create a Power BI report off list data. Now, that same capability is available on SharePoint document libraries. This will let you easily explore your file metadata, such as how frequently files are modified, who makes the most modifications, etc.

Currently, this option is only available at the parent, or root, folder of the document libraries and will not pull metadata for files within folders. We will lift these restrictions in a future update.

Changing the default Power BI Home layout

Recently we have introduced a simplified layout for Power BI Home to make discovery of relevant content easier. This new layout introduces a Recommended widget at the top of the page and a list with several pivots below it. Power BI will display personalized content recommendations in the widget as well as frequently consumed and favorited content. Only content that a user has permissions to access will be displayed.
In March 2022, we are switching all Power BI service users to have the new simplified layout by default. The previous layout (aka Expanded layout) will still be accessible via the layout switcher on Home. A user’s selected layout will persist for subsequent visits to Home.
To learn more about Power BI Home, check out our documentation.

Updated slicer defaults for accessibility improvements

For March 2022, we are updating the new base theme for slicers to enhance overall accessibility. This will affect all newly created reports for some slicers, including List and Date slicers. List slicers will have slightly larger font and spacing between the items to accommodate touch, and generally make selection easier. Default colors are also updated to have slightly higher contrast, for List and Horizontal slicer types. Date pickers will now have a calendar icon, and input labels by default. The new defaults are designed to meet standard accessibility requirements, so to best create accessible content it is advised to keep the default settings. These items can also be modified in the new formatting pane or controlled via a custom theme if you want your report defaults to be different. To learn more about Power BI and Accessibility, check out our documentation.

Example JSON snippet of custom theme file:

        "slicer": {
            "*": {
                "date": [
                    {
                        "hideDatePickerButton": false
                    }
                ],
                "items": [
                    {
                        "fontColor": {
                           "solid": {
                                "color": "#252423"
                            }
                        },
                        "padding": 4,
                "accessibilityContrastProperties": true
                    }
                ]
            }
        },

That is all for this month! Please continue sending us your feedback and do not forget to vote for other features that you would like to see in Power BI! We hope that you enjoy the update! If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review.

Also, don’t forget to vote on your favorite feature this month over on our community website. 

As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

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