Skip to main content

Power BI November 2020 Feature Summary

Headshot of article author Jeroen ter Heerdt
Our anomaly detection algorithm detects that there is an anomaly this month: Anomaly Detection is in preview! Also, we are announcing a preview of the new Field List and the Model View. We are adding a fan-favorite: the Visual Zoom Slider! In the Service, endorsements for datasets and dataflows are extended to reports and apps, enabling business users to be confident they are making decisions based on the right data. Read on to explore and discover more in this month’s update.

Desktop Download button

Here is the full list of November Power BI updates:

Reporting

Analytics

Data connectivity

Service

Visualizations

Developers

Coming Soon

 

To see demos of the highlights, check out the video below:

Download the Power BI Desktop file with the demos in this blog.

Reporting

New Field List (Preview)

We are unifying the field lists across Data, Model and Report view in Power BI Desktop. This change will create consistency for functionality and UI across views (where applicable) to address customer feedback and confusion.

 

Some of the consistency changes you will notice across views are:

  • Iconography
  • Search functionality
  • Context menu items
  • Similar drag-drop behavior
  • Tooltips
  • Accessibility improvements

 

We are aiming to improve Power BI Desktop usability with this change. This should have minimal impact on your typical data workflow.

For November’s release, the new field list will start rolling out to Model view only. To turn this on, find the preview feature switch in the preview options: File > Options and settings > Options > Preview features > New Field list.

 

Below is a ‘before-and-after’ comparison of the changes:

Old (Model View) New (Model View)
Icons and UI
Icons and UI - old model view Icons and UI - new model view
Context Menu – Field
Context Menu Field - old model view Context Menu Field - new model view
Context Menu – Table
Context Menu Table - old model view Context Menu Table - new model view
Tooltips
Tooltips - old model view Tooltips - new model view

 

Also, we have updated the icons for the field list. See our documentation for more information.

Old icon New icon Meaning
old folder icon new folder icon Folder in the Fields list
old numeric field icon new numeric field icon Numeric field: Numeric fields are aggregates that can be summed or averaged, for example. Aggregates are imported with the data and defined in the data model your report is based on. For more information, see Aggregates in Power BI reports.
old calculated column with a non-numeric data type icon new calculated column with a non-numeric data type icon Calculated column with a non-numeric data type: A new non-numeric column you create with a Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) formula that defines the column’s values. Read more about calculated columns.
old numeric calculated column icon new numeric calculated column icon Numeric calculated column: A new column you create with a Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) formula that defines the column’s values. Read more about calculated columns.
old measure icon new measure icon Measure: A measure has its own hard-coded formula. Report viewers cannot change the calculation, for example, if it is a sum, it can only be a sum. The values are not stored in a column. They are calculated on the fly, depending solely on their location in a visual. For more information, read Understanding measures.
old measure group icon new measure group icon Measure group
old KPI icon new KPI icon KPI: A visual cue that communicates the amount of progress made toward a measurable goal. Read more about Key Performance Indicator (KPI) visuals
old hierarchy icon new hierarchy icon Hierarchy of fields: Select the arrow to see the fields that make up the hierarchy. Watch this Power BI video on YouTube about Creating and working with hierarchies for more information.
old geo data icon new geo data icon Geo data: These location fields can be used to create map visualizations.
old identity field icon new identity field icon Identity field: Fields with this icon are unique fields, set to show all values, even if they have duplicates. For example, your data might have records for two different people named ‘Robin Smith’, and each will be treated as unique. They will not be summed.
old parameter icon new parameter icon Parameter: Set parameters to make parts of your reports and data models (such as a query filter, a data source reference, a measure definition, etc.) depend on one or more parameter values. See this Power BI blog post about query parameters for more information.
old calendar date field icon new calendar date field icon Calendar date field with a built-in date table
old calculated table icon new calculated table icon Calculated table: A table created with a Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) formula based on data already loaded into the model. These are best used for intermediate calculations and you want to store as part of the model.
old warning icon new warning icon Warning: A calculated field with an error. For example, the syntax of the DAX expression might be incorrect.
old group icon new group icon Group: Values in this column are based on grouping values from another column, by using the groups and bins feature. You can read how to Use grouping and binning.
new change detection measure icon Change detection measure: When you configure a page for automatic page refresh, you can configure a change detection measure that is queried to determine if the rest of a page’s visuals should be updated.

 

New Model View (Preview)

You can use the model view in Power BI Desktop to view and work with complex datasets that contain many tables. This month, the model view has a new look. To use the new look, go to the model view and press “Upgrade now” to use the new look.

the new model view

Feel free to leave feedback about the New Model View on this forum post.

Table Card Headers

Header Color

Table card headers show colors to help you quickly see which tables are from the same kind of source. All tables that are in import mode will not show a color. Tables from the same DirectQuery source (blue in the image below) will show a color for tables from that same source. For our color-blind users, you can also learn which tables are from the same source by hovering over the table headers to see more details. Read the section Table Card Tooltips to learn more.

View of the new model view focused on table card headers.

For tables in dual mode, the header will show a hashed color to represent that the table is in both import and DirectQuery mode.

a hashed color in the header represents a table is both in import and DirectQuery mode

Storage Mode Icons

Icons have been added to the table headers to help you quickly identify the storage mode that a table is in.

table import mode Table is in import mode
table DirectQuery mode Table is in DirectQuery mode
table live mode Table comes from a live connected source
table dual mode Table is in dual (both import and DirectQuery) mode.

 

Error Icons

If you have a field that has an error, now you will see an error icon show up next to that field.

error icon in new model view

Table Card Tooltips

When you hover over the table card headers, you will see a tooltip giving you more details about that table in your model.

For a table that has been imported, you can see the name of the table, the storage mode it is in, and when the data in that table was last refreshed.

table card tooltips

For a table in DirectQuery mode, you can see the name of the table, the storage mode, the type of data source being used, and the server and database names.

Collapse Card

To simplify the look of your model, you can collapse table cards to make them smaller.

table card tooltips

You can also collapse your table cards but continue to show key fields. To learn more about showing key fields, read the section “Show key fields when card is collapsed”.

Table Card Properties

You can change how table cards in the model view display information with card properties. To see card properties, make sure you do not have a table or field selected.

Show the database in the header when applicable

For tables that have associated database information, you can choose to show this information in the header of your table cards.

You can also choose to turn this off for a simplified, minimalistic look.

Show key field when card is collapsed

If you collapse a card, you can choose to continue to display the key fields for that table. Key fields are primary or foreign keys of relationships. In the following image, OrderDate, ProdID, and StoreKey are key fields of the table Sales.

Pin Key field on top of card

You can choose to pin key fields of a table to the top of its table card.

This image shows the fields in the Sales table in alphabetical order, which is the default order for tables and fields in Power BI.

If you turn on “Pin key field on top of card”, the key fields for a table will show up at the top of your table cards. As you can see in the following image, the fields in the Sales table are no longer in alphabetical order because the key fields OrderDate, ProdID, and StoreKey have been moved to the top of the card.

Performance Improvements

We have made some performance improvements to the model view. If you have a large model (more than 50 tables), instead of trying to show all your tables and hitting performance errors, Power BI will load and let you decide the layouts that you would like to work with.

 

Apply all filters is now generally available

We are excited to announce that the Apply all filters feature is now generally available. As a refresher, this feature was introduced to help optimize the filter pane for query reduction by applying all filter changes at once. Previously, you had two options for filter queries: apply basic filters instantly (the default option) or add an apply button to each basic filter. The first option to apply the basic filter instantly is ideal for those who prefer instant interactivity over query reduction. The second option, which added an apply button to each filter card, optimized for query reduction instead. However, it required an additional click every time you needed to apply a filter.
In May, we released a preview of an Apply all filters option for you to add a single apply button to the filter pane, essentially allowing you and your end-users to apply all filter modifications at once. This capability is useful if you want to defer when to apply filter changes, so that you only have to wait once after you are ready to apply any filter changes to the report or visuals.

 

Note that you can set this feature at a report-level; however, the feature will be off by default.
You can turn on this option in Power BI Desktop by going to File > Options and settings > Options > Query reduction > Filters and selecting the option to Add a single Apply button to the filter pane to apply changes at once.

As part of this general availability release, we have also made a few usability improvements:

  • You can now change the fill color for the Apply button in the Filter pane tab of the Format pane:

  • You can also specify the color in the theme itself:

 

  • We also improved the behavior for the Clear filter Previously, if you hit clear filter, the action would be instant instead of deferred, like other filter modifications. Now, when you hit the Clear filter icon, we will only clear the filter when you hit the Apply button on the filter pane.

 

Visual Zoom Slider


We are excited to announce that you can now add zoom sliders to your Cartesian charts! Zoom sliders give report creators and consumers an easy way to examine a smaller range of the data in a chart without having to use a filter. Further, using zoom sliders will not affect contextual information like calculated trendlines.

To use the zoom slider, simply click and drag endpoints to adjust the dimensions of the view window; and click and drag the bar between them to pan that window around. Following is an example of zoom sliders in action:

You can enable zoom sliders in their card in the formatting pane of supported visuals. As in the following screenshot, you will also see a few other options:

The X and Y axis toggles enable or disable the zoom slider for each axis. The slider labels toggle enables a new row of labels next to the slider indicating the full range of the data, and the slider tooltips toggle makes tooltips appear as you click and drag each endpoint, showing you the value of your selection as you work with the slider.

The zoom state of your visual will also be saved when you save and publish your report. When end users open the report, the endpoints of the zoom slider will default to whatever you have saved, allowing you to highlight a specific window of data while keeping its context immediately accessible.

Zoom sliders will be enabled for bar/column, line, line and bar/column combo, and scatter charts.

 

Data point rectangle select extended to Map visual

This month, we have extended the data point rectangle select preview feature to the Map visual. Now you can click and drag across your maps to create a selection rectangle, allowing you to easily select multiple points at once. Thank you for all your feedback so far, and please continue letting us know how you are finding the experience and what other visuals you would like to see supported!

 

Certificate revocation check for web connections

We have strengthened the security of web connections to protect your data. However, this means that certain scenarios, like capturing web requests with Fiddler, will no longer work by default. To enable those scenarios, uncheck the “Enable certificate revocation check” in the Security pane in the Options dialog and then restart Power BI Desktop. Be aware that unchecking that box will make web connections less secure.

 

Paginated Reports Updates

Paginated Report Sample Reports

We are excited to introduce official Paginated report samples for you to download and try out in the Power BI service. To learn more, check out the documentation on how to download the sample reports from GitHub. They reflect several typical scenarios you might use paginated reports in, including:

  • An operational report around sales performance
  • An invoice generated for a customer
  • A course transcript
  • Mailing labels
  • A formal receipt mailed to a customer

Download connected paginated report from a Power BI dataset

To help get started building a paginated report against a Power BI dataset, we have added the ability to download the RDL file from the Power BI service with the connection information already defined for the selected Power BI dataset.  Simply choose any Power BI dataset in the service you have access to and right-click on the dataset.  You will see the option to “Download the .rdl”.  To learn more, click on Download the .rdl for a Power BI paginated report from a dataset.

Search in parameter dropdowns in Power BI

We have addressed one of the top usability issues related to parameter dropdowns in the Power BI service. You can now use a fuzzy text search to better filter the value you are looking for, so you do not have to scroll through a long list to get the selected item.  To learn more, check out the documentation around Parameters for paginated reports in the Power BI service.

Page view mode URL parameter

You can pass “rdl:reportView=pageView” as part of a URL to configure the look and feel of your paginated reports in Power BI and render the report in page view mode instead of interactive. To learn more, check out the documentation for URL access parameter references.

Also, if you have not already registered your tenant to get priority access to the upcoming public preview of Power BI Premium per user, make sure you check out the blogpost and get registered so you can use all the premium capabilities, including paginated reports, for free.

Power Automate actions for exporting Power BI and paginated reports

You may easily leverage the Power BI export API for either Power BI reports or paginated reports in your Power Automate workflows. These new actions make it easy for anyone to quickly export their Power BI content in a variety of supported formats and scenarios. Want to have a Power BI report saved to OneDrive every day at noon as a PDF, or have different reports mailed to everyone on your team in different formats? No problem. Have a Power App using the Common Data Service and want to print an invoice from it using paginated reports?  You can do that now too!

Read more in this blog post.

Crediting total labels for stacked visuals (Sept 2020)

We missed this shoutout when the feature first shipped, but the total labels on stacked charts feature was an intern project developed by Hunter Hancock! Thank you for your hard work, Hunter, and we wish you all the best moving forward!

Analytics

Anomaly Detection (Preview)


Anomaly detection helps you enhance your line charts by automatically detecting anomalies in your time series data. It also provides explanations for the anomalies to help with root cause analysis. With just a couple of clicks you can easily find insights without slicing and dicing the data.

 

Since this feature is in preview, you will first need to turn on the feature switch by going to File > Options and Settings > Options > Preview feature and make sure Anomaly detection is turned on:

Once you enable Anomaly detection on a chart by adding “Find Anomalies” from the analytics pane, it gets automatically enriched with the anomalies and expected range of values.

 

This experience is highly customizable, where you can configure the sensitivity of the algorithm, shape, size, color of the anomaly, the color, style, transparency of the expected range.

 

 

Once you select the anomaly, Power BI runs an analysis across the fields in your data model to figure out possible explanations. The Anomalies pane provides a natural language explanation of the anomaly and associated factors sorted by their explanatory strength.

 

You can control the fields that are used for analysis by dragging fields into the Explain by field well. Clicking on an explanation opens the card where you can see more details of the explanation. You can also add the explanation visual to the report.

 

 

Report consumers can view anomalies and explanations after the creator publishes the report to the Service.

Please try this out while it is in preview. We greatly appreciate any feedback in terms of what you liked about the feature and how we can improve it! If you have any feedback for the team, please comment on our community post. Read more at this blog.

 

Q&A now supports partial matching data values

Q&A now supports a much-requested feature: ‘partial matching for data values’. Prior to this update if you typed in ‘show me sales for Azure’, the question would fail because the actual value is ‘Microsoft Azure’. With this new update, we will now return you intelligent matches by searching the data for more than just exact matches.

 

Data connectivity

Hive LLAP connector generally available

We are happy to announce the general availability of the Hive LLAP connector, as well as its addition to the On-Premises Data Gateway.

This connector provides both Import and Direct Query capabilities and the ability to specify Thrift Transport Protocol as ‘Standard’ or ‘HTTP’.

This connector can be found in the Other category of the Get Data dialog.

 

New connectors

Actian (beta)

Actian Avalanche is a fully managed platform with a hybrid cloud data warehouse. The cloud data warehouse was designed from the ground up to deliver high performance and scale across all dimensions – data volume, concurrent user, and query complexity – powered by a vectorized database engine. Using ODBC and / or JDBC connectivity, users of Avalanche can easily connect Power BI to an Avalanche cloud data warehouse.  Learn more about Actian Avalanche. You will be able to find this connector in the database category.

To download the Avalanche client drivers, please use the following link: https://esd.actian.com/

 

Anaplan

The Anaplan Connector for Power BI is a user-friendly native connector for Power BI. It allows you to easily connect your Anaplan data and models to Power BI to align with your specific KPIs and brand. The connector lets you load export actions saved within Anaplan models directly into Power BI. Learn more about the Anaplan Connector for Power BI. Find this connector in the other category.

 

Starburst Presto (beta)

Starburst Data provides accelerated data analytics at scale with PowerBI. The Power BI DirectQuery driver can be used to connect Microsoft Power BI Desktop and Microsoft Power BI Service to Starburst Enterprise. It allows users to connect PowerBI with Starburst’s distribution of Presto. This combination enables the query processing to be performed in Presto instead of moving data to Power BI for processing. The ANSI SQL MPP query engine offers fast access to massive volumes of complex data at source (consolidated or federated). PowerBI leverages that single point of access to data anywhere and enables users to analyze the data to make informed business decisions in real time. Starburst Enterprise includes numerous high-performance parallel connectors with global security, caching, autoscaling, cost-based query optimizer, and 24×7 support from Presto experts. Learn more about the StarBurst Direct Query Driver for Power BI. Please find this connector in the other category.

 

 

Service

Certified and Promoted reports and apps

Organizations are increasingly seeking to build a data culture so they can leverage insights every day, at all levels of their organization, across users with a variety of analytical skillsets. A key enabler for a data culture is the pervasive availability of standardized, authoritative data that represents a single source of truth, enabling users to make decisions based on trusted data.

To encourage the use of standardized data, we previously released endorsement for datasets and dataflows. This capability was designed to help report creators who need to find authorized data to build their reports on top of.

We are now extending this capability to provide similar endorsement capabilities for reports and apps. This will enable business users to be confident they are making business decisions based on the right data.

With certification, we are providing organizations with a mechanism they can use to distinguish their most valued and trusted content. Content certification can be tightly controlled and documented via an admin control, ensuring that certification is a selective process that results in the establishment of truly reliable and authoritative body of content designed for use across the organization.

As Power BI becomes widely adopted across your org, you can see that many reports are available. Oftentimes, multiple similar reports exist, with major overlap between them, making it difficult to find the right report one can use and be sure of. Any content owner (a user with an admin/member/contributor role in the workspace) can promote their content, thereby marking it as trusted and ready to be shared. This promoted content will get better visibility in a variety of Power BI experiences, making it easier for business users to find and identify.

Read this documentation to get more details and get started.

 

The ‘new look’ of the Power BI service is live

All the improvements of the ‘new look’, from navigation updates to the simplified action bar for reports and dashboards, have been fully released to all tenants and users. Thank you for your feedback during public preview as we made incremental updates to modernize and simplify the Power BI service.

Here’s a recap of key ‘new look’ improvements, see this prior blog post for more detail:

  • Simplified action bar: The action bar has been made simpler and organized so it is easier to find related actions and putting most common actions front and center.
  • Page navigation settings: Report authors can choose where report page navigation sits, on the left as a pane or across the bottom as tabs.
  • Minimize global navigation and collapse left page navigation: To give you more room to view and interact with your reports, we have updated interactions to minimize the global navigation and collapse the left pages navigation.
  • New workspaces: Easier to scan, find what you need, get data, search, take quick actions, and more. Read all about workspaces updates here.
  • Updated personal bookmarks: Previously, selecting a personal bookmark would update the bread crumb in the top bar with the name of the bookmark. Moving forward, the bookmark name will be updated inline within the context of your report action bar.
  • View report details: See details such as last refresh date and contact information quickly, right in the top banner.
  • Vertical list of pages: Report page names are now in a list in a vertical pane. They are prominent, hard to miss, and like navigation in Word and PowerPoint.
  • Improved filter experience: Updates such as viewing applied filters and the new filters pane are available by default with the ‘new look’.
  • Dashboard experience: Dashboards also have a simplified action bar, just like reports and apps, for a consistent experience, while retaining the functional differences.

 

With ‘new look’ released to all tenants and users, the user-facing “New look on” toggle has been removed from the header.

 

Have comments, feedback, or ideas for future improvements? We would love to hear from you. You can vote on new feature ideas or discuss in forums, leave a comment below, or respond to in-product feedback prompts.

 

Visualizations

New Visualizations

New this month are:

Forecast visual by Predmac

Global Launch Estimated by TheraTraq

Lollipop Column Chart by Nova Silva

Dynamic KPI Card by Sereviso

Shielded HTML Viewer by Nova Silva

TheraTraq Timeline Circle by TheraTraq

Workforce by TheraTraq

Zebra BI 4.4

The latest update of Zebra BI visuals for Power BI (version 4.4) introduces a few totally innovative ideas and is delivering many frequently requested features. Major changes such as multi-level hierarchical charts and custom fonts, as well as the ability to freeze row headers in tables, 1-click experience of Top N + Others, support for Analytics pane, additional fields for tooltips and new design options for sleeker look — everything was made to make your dashboards even more understandable and actionable.

 

Both Zebra BI visuals now support additional tooltip fields and custom fonts.

Zebra BI Tables (version 4.4)

 

The most important new features in Zebra BI Tables are:

Freeze or unfreeze categories (row headers)

If you freeze the row headers (first column), it locks them into place. This is very practical for use with data-heavy table or matrix displays:

Multi-level hierarchical charts

This feature is our favorite from this update, and it is easy to see why. Hierarchical charts are quite a challenge in data visualization because of the scaling issue with higher levels on the hierarchy being much larger than all other levels below that. But not anymore. We found a more natural way for you to display the contribution of each level lower on your hierarchy. Here is an example with a vertical waterfall chart. As you can see, it makes it clear to understand how each business unit contributes to the total bottom line of each division and it handles subtotals beautifully:

This solution works especially well in P&Ls (income statements). In a hierarchical P&L, you can dynamically expand/collapse certain subtotals as needed, for example, revenue, COGS, or OpEx:

 

1-click Top/Bottom N

Filtering tables with the Top N feature is now even better. We made it a lot easier for you to change the number of Top N elements you wish to see.

This feature is rolled out across hierarchies. You can turn the Top N on or off separately for any level in your hierarchy!

 

Analytics Pane

Analytics pane is one of those Power BI features that too often gets overlooked but is hiding some useful powers. It enables you to simply add certain calculated elements, i.e., average, median, constant, and percentile to your tables. You can for example set the benchmark and it will be displayed on the table (see the yellow line below):

Performance improvements

Several performance improvements. First tests show improvements of 15-25% in many cases.

There are many other important new features and improvements in the Zebra BI Tables visual that will improve the design and usability of your Power BI reports and dashboards, so make sure you read the full product update and check out the video here: Zebra BI for Power BI – 4.4 Update

Zebra BI Charts (version 4.4)

Sleeker axis labels in small multiples

Zebra BI’s small multiples are already quite advanced and follow a minimalistic concept, however, with this version we are further improving their legibility. You can now control the density and the number of axis labels.

This is important because in a typical small multiple there can be a lot of redundancy in data labels. Now we are giving you more options, i.e., to display only labels in the first chart, only on the first row, or on the last row only. See the example below:

Even if the charts are larger and users need to scroll up and down, your labels on the bottom will stay frozen and help users understand which categories they are looking at.

1-Click Top N + Others

From now on you can change the number of charts displayed with one simple click. Even your viewers can increase or decrease the number of charts:

P.S. When you change the number of charts, everything else is still automatically calculated in the Other chart.

Additional fields for tooltips

Tooltips make reports more understandable for people who read them. From now on there are additional data fields in your data tooltips. Use them wisely and when your users hover over certain values, they are going to see additional information for each data point, even text comments!

Switch comparison scenarios

If you have multiple comparisons in your Zebra BI Charts visual, you can now choose the order in which they are displayed:

There are many other important new features and improvements in the Zebra BI Charts visual that will improve the design and usability of your Power BI reports and dashboards, so make sure you read the full product update and check out the video here: Zebra BI for Power BI – 4.4 Update.

New Visual by ZoomCharts: Drill Down Map PRO

Drill Down Map PRO by ZoomCharts stands out among other map visuals with powerful on-chart filtering capabilities and rich customization options. Use it to create stunning maps with built-in filters (such as countries and states) or create and store your own filters for custom regions. Unique features such as data clusters as donut charts and multi-page tooltip enables you to show more data per location in a structured, user-friendly way. Because all interactions are multi-touch friendly, data are easy and intuitive to explore on any device.

The main features are:

 

Up-to 11 layers

Use Microsoft Azure Maps or a custom tile server of your choice (e.g., OpenStreetMap) as the base layer. Add additional shape layers on top of that using either built-in shapes or add your own by specifying KML/GeoJSON sources. Each layer can be bound to specific zoom levels to enable dynamic drill down experience.

     

Filtering using custom shapes

Use built-in shape layers (e.g., countries, states), create your own custom shapes (the lasso tool) or import shapes from KML/GeoJSON files and use the shapes to aggregate and filter your data. Custom shapes can be saved in the visual within the report to enable your end users to use them for data exploration purposes.

Cluster the data using the built-in Drill Down Donut PRO visuals

When grouping data in clusters based on their location and proximity, you can turn them into donut charts to visualize the content of the cluster – data will be automatically grouped by the category field. Slices act as category filters.

Multi-page tooltips for clustered nodes

Multi-page tooltips solve the problem of showing additional information for each data point within the cluster. You can browse information for all related nodes within one tooltip, using navigation arrows.

 

Rich customization options

As all ZoomCharts custom visuals, Drill Down Map PRO comes with plenty of formatting options. There are multiple node shapes to choose from as well as image support for nodes. You can add auras, assign a different color for each node category, adjust node sizes, fonts, and labels. Visual also fully supports measures, drill-through and report page tooltip.

Drill Down Map PRO is perfect for use cases such as visualizing environmental, sociodemographic and health data, mapping sales and marketing data or monitoring production and equipment data by site location (e.g., drilling or mining sites). Head to Microsoft AppSource and try out the visual today!

 

xViz Scatter/ Bubble chart

The xViz Scatter/ Bubble chart provides 9 quick-start templates, including Scatter, Bubble and an IBCS variation for both. A Scatterplot chart displays the relationship between two numerical values (X and Y coordinate) and ideal for correlation analysis and outlier detection. The bubble chart further enhances the Scatterplot’s information density by adding a size variable as a third dimension. You can also pack more information by using color as the fourth variable, either value or category, with conditional formatting.

The category fields are used for labeling the bubbles and activate drill down mode when more than one. The legend field further splits the bubbles into different groups, which can be styled with specific colors, shapes, patterns, and custom images under the Appearance Tab.

 

Several key features and frequently asked customer requirements are addressed as below:

  • Robust Conditional Formatting for outlier detection
  • IBCS Standard Templates for Bubble and scatter
  • Variance Bar for strategic use cases
  • Data Label customization – Display Category and value for each data point
  • Analytics section – Custom Lines, Trend Lines, Reference lines & bands
  • Runtime options – Ranking with ‘Others’, Zoom in/out, Lasso and Reverse Lasso,
  • Annotations for enhanced Storytelling
  • Bubble Customization – Shape, Size, Pattern and Custom images (Data URI)
  • Axis Ranges for grouping Axis into different bands

Editor’s picks

This month’s Editor’s picks are:

Bowtie Chart by MAQ Software

valQ – Collaborate

Collage by CloudScope

Drill Down Donut PRO by ZoomCharts

 

 

Developers

 

Power BI Automation and APIs

 
Take over API for paginated report data source
The new Power BI API for Reports will allow you to transfer the ownership of paginated report data sources to authorized users who call the API.

For instance, to update the details of a data source, you must be the owner of the data source. The Take over API for paginated reports will help you take ownership of the source to allow you to update it.

The new API will be the equivalent of the existing API, Datasets – Take over in group, which allows you to transfer ownership of a dataset for Power BI reports.

Fetch more data API 3.4

The fetch more data API enables custom visuals to bypass the hard limit of a 30K rows data view when additional data is needed. With the new 3.4 API release we extended the fetch more data API’s functionality to support a new approach of loading data chunks. In addition to the existing approach which aggregates all the chunks requested, the API now supports loading only incremental data chunks!

The new approach allows more flexibility in the way additional data chunks are loaded to the visual. For more information and an example that shows how to use this new approach, see this article.

Also, we highly recommend you update your visuals to the latest API release to enjoy the new functionalities, and improvements.

Enhanced testing of your developed custom visual

We added a new feature that enables developers to override the AppSource published visual version with a local file version in both Desktop and Service. This is used when developers want to test or debug a local version of a visual that is already published in AppSource. For more information see our documentation.

Coming Soon

Many of you will have been eagerly awaiting two important preview features this month. Small multiples and Composite models over Power BI datasets and Azure Analysis Services were both slated for November in our release notes, but we have taken the difficult decision to push them back to December. We want to make sure the quality of the features is high, even when they are in preview, and we wanted some more time to get there. The release notes pages should be updated this week. Thanks for your patience – we will have lots of information to share in December and be asking for your feedback then as well!

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.

Desktop Download button