Power BI August 2026 Feature Summary
Welcome to the August 2026 Power BI Feature Summary! This month includes updates across reporting, modeling, data connectivity, mobile, embedded analytics, and developer experiences, with a mix of generally available enhancements and new preview capabilities. Let's take a look at what's new. Download Power BI Desktop Events and Announcements September 15 | What a Winning Power BI Dataviz Looks Like Meet the finalists headed to Barcelona to compete for the title of Power BI Dataviz World Champion. Explore the visuals that got them there, hear their tips for creating standout dataviz, and join their virtual cheer squad before they face the ultimate challenge: 20 minutes to create a championship-winning visual live on stage. Reserve your spot. Community Conference Tickets are Getting Low The European Microsoft Fabric and SQL Community Conference take place September 28 to October 1 in Barcelona, Spain, bringing together Microsoft experts and community leaders for exclusive content, live demos, and key announcements, along with more than 130 sessions spanning Fabric, Azure AI, Databases, Power BI, and Microsoft Purview. And of course, the live Dataviz World Championships finale! The most recent event in Atlanta sold out. Don’t miss out and register for the Barcelona event with code FABCMTY200 to save €200. General Deprecation of Old File Picker experience in Power BI Desktop In April we deprecated the old file picker experience in Power BI Desktop. Starting in October, users still utilize versions of Power BI desktop from March 2026 or earlier will no longer be able to save and share Power BI files to One Drive and SharePoint. Please ensure you update Power BI desktop to keep using this functionality. Note: No action is required from users as part of this deprecation; this is simply an informational announcement. Copilot and AI Updates to required semantic model permissions for Fabric Apps Currently, users need Build permission on the underlying semantic model to view and interact with a Fabric App created with the data app template. In early September, consumers will need only Read permission on the semantic model, along with access to the Fabric app. This change supports least-privilege of access by no longer requiring the broader Build permission for app consumption. App authors will still require Build permissions on the semantic model. Learn more about creating a Fabric app connected to a semantic model. Copilot Summary and Copilot Narrative can now read visuals hidden behind bookmarks Authors commonly use report bookmarks as tabs to organize content by showing and hiding visuals on a page. In these designs, certain visuals are hidden by default and revealed only when a display-only report bookmark is triggered. Copilot previously skipped these visuals entirely, so its Summary responses reflected only part of the report. Copilot Summary can now read and consider these bookmark-revealable visuals in its responses. This covers only visuals that are hidden by default and made visible by a display-only report bookmark triggered through a bookmark button or bookmark navigator. Authors can also select these hidden visuals when configuring the Copilot Narrative visual. Visuals are read in place with no changes to the bookmark state, and RLS and OLS permissions stay fully enforced. To learn more, refer to Summarize a report with Copilot and Create a narrative visual with Copilot for Power BI. Reporting Modern visual defaults and customize themes formatting panes (Generally Available) New reports created in Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service start with the Fluent 2 base theme, giving you a polished, consistent look without formatting each visual. Use the Theme pane to set the base theme, adjust colors to your brand or pick from one of the available color palettes, change text styles, set specific visual properties, page settings, and the filter pane look and feel across your entire report, and import or export custom theme, in both Desktop or web. Figure: Customizing a report’s base theme and color palette in the Power BI Theme pane. In this release, we also removed all font overrides from the base theme, so the Text section in the Theme pane now works as intended. Change a font in one place to update titles, callouts, labels, and general text across every visual in your report, including new visuals added later. For a deeper look at what's included, see the Deep dive into Modern Visual Defaults and Customizing Theme Improvements and Deep dive into modern visual defaults and formatting your entire report blog posts. Learn more about the base themes and the Theme pane in the Visual defaults in Power BI reports documentation. Date picker for Slicer visual (Generally Available) Date pickers combine relative selections that roll forward as time passes with a calendar and slider for manual date range or single date selection. You can anchor relative options to today, the first date, or the last date in your column. Figure: Enabling single-date selection for the Date picker slicer in the Selection controls settings. New in this release, the Single date setting under Visual > Slicer settings > Selection controls restrict the slicer to one date at a time—the calendar and slider allow only a single date, and the relative options are limited to selections that return a single date. And you can now clear selections from a header icon in addition to slicer header. For more information, see the Slicer visual in Power BI documentation. Center value for donut chart (Generally Available) Donut charts can now show value in the center, no overlaid card required. Enable the center value and the donut displays it right in the middle. You control the details in the formatting pane: value format, display units, and font. Add an optional label above or below the value, place an image above or below it, or change the background filling or image of the center. Need something other than the total? Add a custom measure to the center value in the formatting pane. Figure: A donut center can show a plain total or a custom value, label, image, or background to match your report. The center value stays in sync with your data: filtering, cross-highlighting, drill-down, and selecting a slice all update it automatically. And because it lives inside the visual, it stays aligned across resizing, mobile, and dashboards, and works with screen readers. To add a center value, select your donut chart, open the formatting pane, and turn on Center value. To learn more, refer to Add a center value to a donut chart. Comments support for reports in org apps Users can now collaborate on reports in org apps using comments. Comment on report pages and visuals, start discussions with colleagues, and use ‘@mentions’ to notify others and bring them into the conversation. Comments also capture the current report context, helping others understand exactly what you're seeing when providing feedback or discussing insights. Figure: Comments pane open on a report in an org app comment box highlighted. To learn more about, see comments in Power BI reports. Matrix: Expand and collapse for column headers (Generally Available) You can now expand and collapse column headers in the matrix visual, just like you already can for row headers. When your matrix has more than one field in the Columns field well, +/- icons appear on the column headers so you can combine groups or reveal more detail directly in the visual. You can also customize the color and size of the +/- icons under Column headers > +/- icons in the format pane. Figure: Customizing the color and size of expand and collapse icons for matrix column and row headers. To learn more, see Expand and collapse row and column headers. Matrix: Set the default freeze state for row headers in the format pane Report authors can now set the default freeze state for matrix row headers directly in the format pane. Turn the Row headers toggle on or off under Layout > Freeze to control whether row headers stay visible or scroll away when consumers scroll horizontally. This default is saved with the report and applies to everyone who views it. Figure: Setting the default freeze state for matrix row headers in the Visual formatting pane. This new setting is especially useful for mobile layouts. On phones, portrait orientation limits horizontal space, so you might want to unfreeze the row headers on your mobile layout to give data values more room, while keeping them frozen on the desktop layout, which typically uses landscape orientation. Figure: Setting the default freeze state for matrix row headers in a mobile layout. The right-click Freeze row headers and Unfreeze row headers options are still available and, as before, remain transient — they apply only to the current viewing session, so consumers can flip the state temporarily without changing the report author's default. To learn more, see Freeze row headers. OneLake file URLS for report visuals and maps (Generally Available) You can now use links to image files stored in OneLake as an image source anywhere where Power BI accepts an image URL. This works in the image visual, table and matrix cells, the card visual, button and list slicers, as well as for custom icons in the Icons cell element when you use the Field value format style. OneLake file links work even though they require authentication—Power BI signs in on your behalf when the report loads, so you don't have to make images anonymously accessible to use them in your report. Copy the file URL from OneLake and paste it into any image URL field or into a column or measure set as Image URL. Example: https://onelake.dfs.fabric.microsoft.com/{workspace-id}/{item-id}/Files/{path-to-image Figure: Using a OneLake file URL as the image source for an image visual in Power BI. Reference layer maps and shape map files can also be linked from OneLake file URLs. Keep your files in OneLake and use them in your Power BI reports today! For more information, see the Display images in a table, matrix, or slicer and Image visual in Power BI documentation. Outer padding for bar, column, line, ribbon, and waterfall charts in formatting pane (Generally Available) Column, bar, clustered, line, ribbon, and waterfall charts now include an Outer padding setting under Layout, giving you control over the space between the edges of the plot area and the first and last categories. This is helpful when you want your chart to fill the visual—especially in scenarios where you've turned off the category axis and are relying on a legend, like a clustered column chart used as a comparison view. Then, you can simply resize the visual to get the look you want on your report page. Reducing outer padding on line charts with categories also lets you show more data before a scrollbar appears. Figure: Adjusting outer padding and spacing between categories to control how charts fill the plot area. To use it, select the visual and, in the Format pane, expand Columns, Bars, or Lines > Layout, then set Outer padding to 0%. To fully fill the plot area, also set Space between categories to 0%. For more information, see the Customize x-axis and y-axis properties documentation. Azure map reference layer shape-matching improvements (Generally Available) Shape matching in Azure Maps reference layers now delivers significantly better performance. When you match your Power BI data to shapes in a reference layer—for example, joining sales data to a set of custom territories or regions in a GeoJSON file—reports now render faster, and interactions like filtering, cross-highlighting, and zoom respond more smoothly. No configuration change is required; existing reports automatically benefit from the improvements. Figure: Improved Azure Maps reference layer performance, with faster rendering shown in the Performance analyzer. For more information, see the Add a reference layer to the Azure Maps Power BI visual documentation. Azure map loads filtered selection and autozoom (Generally Available) The Azure Map visual has a 30,000 data point rendering limit, and previously, points beyond that limit didn't display—even when you filtered the report to focus on a smaller area whose data hadn't originally loaded. Now, when you filter to a smaller selection, the visual reloads to include the newly relevant data points that weren't part of the original 30,000. This means you can start with a broad view of your data and drill into any subset—by region, category, time period, or through cross-filtering—and be confident the map shows the complete picture for what you've filtered to, not just what fit in the initial load. Figure: Filtering the report to Washington reloads the relevant ZIP code shapes and automatically zooms the Azure Maps visual to the selected area. The Azure Map visual also now automatically zooms to fit the currently filtered area. When you or a report viewer applies filters, use slicers, or cross-filter from another visual, the map reframes to the extent of the visible data instead of staying at the original viewport. This keeps the map focused on the data being analyzed and removes the need to manually pan and zoom after every filter change. For more information on Azure Map, see the Azure Maps visual for Power BI documentation. Slicer visual dropdown border color, open icon, and hierarchy expand and collapse icon colors in formatting pane (Generally Available) Based on your feedback, we’ve added more slicer formatting options beyond the selection icon, giving you greater control over the slicer’s appearance. When you add more than one field to the slicer to have a hierarchy in vertical list or dropdown style, make sure the icon color matches your report. And dropdown style, offering a compact slicer to your report has more formatting options. Figure: Customizing the slicer dropdown border, open icon, and accent bar in the Visual formatting pane. The new top-level Dropdown section in the Visual formatting pane lets you customize the dropdown box in both its open and closed states, including border color (with conditional formatting), rounded corners, and the open icon color (with conditional formatting) and transparency. A new Accent bar option adds a color bar to the dropdown box with settings for color (with conditional formatting), position, transparency, and width. For hierarchy slicers, the top-level Hierarchy section lets you color the expand and collapse icons (with conditional formatting) and choose which icon to use. For more information, see the Slicer visual in Power BI documentation. Modeling More control over Semantic Model refresh in Power BI Service We've added new refresh options in Power BI Service to give you greater control over how semantic models are refreshed. Previously, selecting Refresh always performed a schema sync followed by a data refresh. While this works well in most scenarios, there are times when you may want to refresh data without updating the model schema or vice versa. For example, in Direct Lake semantic models, a Lakehouse table might have changed by adding new columns, but you may want to load the latest data without bringing those schema changes into the model. Figure: New model refresh options in Power BI Service Model view. The Refresh button now includes three options: Refresh schema and data: Updates the schema and then refreshes data. Sync schema only: Applies schema changes from the data source, such as new columns or data type changes. Refresh data only: Loads the latest data while preserving the current semantic model schema. In addition, refresh operations can now be performed at the table level. This allows you to refresh a specific table instead of the entire semantic model and choose whether to refresh its schema, data, or both. Figure: New table refresh options in Power BI Service Model explorer. These enhancements provide more flexibility and control over semantic model maintenance, helping you refresh exactly what you need while minimizing unnecessary changes and processing. Refer to the Data refresh in Power BI documentation for more information. Convert Direct Lake Tables to Import Storage Mode in Web Modeling (Preview) Direct Lake on OneLake supports composite models by allowing for mixing Direct Lake tables with Import and DirectQuery tables. You can now convert individual Direct Lake tables to Import storage mode directly in Power BI web modeling, giving you a seamless way to build a Direct Lake composite (mixed mode) semantic model. Open a Direct Lake on OneLake semantic model in web modeling, select one or multiple tables, and change the Storage mode from Direct Lake to Import in the Properties pane. The modeling flow guides you through configuring a connection and refreshing the table into Import mode. Because Direct Lake and Import tables support regular relationships, performance remains unchanged. Figure: Change the Storage mode property from Direct Lake to Import to convert a single table. A warning dialog will be surfaced before continuing. This feature will be rolling out over the next few weeks. Refer to the Direct Lake in web modeling documentation for more information. Direct Lake Calculated Columns (Preview) You can define calculated columns directly in your semantic model using DAX in web modeling and Power BI Desktop, without changing the table storage mode or modifying data upstream. Key behaviors Only the User Context expression context is supported. User-context-aware DAX functions such as USERCULTURE() are supported. Columns do not materialize and are evaluated at query time. Security context is respected (RLS and OLS). Columns cannot be used in relationships because they do not materialize. Expressions that do not reference user-aware functions or secured columns behave like any other DAX calculated column. Figure: Creating a concatenated location field. Figure: Month names displayed using USERCULTURE(). "Customer Location" returns the same value for every user unless the security context differs. "Month Name" adapts to the language of the person viewing the report. Figure: Month names are localized based on the user's culture using USERCULTURE(). No preview switch is required - open a Direct Lake on OneLake semantic model in the web or edit in Desktop, add a calculated column, and start authoring in DAX. To learn more, see the Create calculated columns in Power BI Desktop documentation. Data connectivity Accessibility, Dark Mode, and Usability Upgrades Theming improvements for better accessibility In this release, we’ve invested in a range of theming improvements that address color contrast and readability across both the light and dark themes. Users who rely on higher-contrast visuals will notice cleaner, more legible interface elements throughout the Power Query UI. Highlights: Improved color contrast across interface elements in both light and dark themes. More consistent theming that keeps controls, text, and icons clearly distinguishable. A stronger foundation for accessibility that benefits all users, regardless of theme preference. Figure: Better contrast for connectors and white background for icons. Better contrast for connector icons in Dark Mode Connector icons are how you quickly recognize your data sources, but in Dark Mode, icons with transparent backgrounds could blend into the surrounding UI and become hard to identify. We’ve fixed that. Now, when a connector icon has a transparent background, it automatically receives a white background in Dark Mode. The result: connector icons stand out clearly and stay easy to identify across the new Power Query UI, making it faster to find and select the right data source briefly. To learn more, refer to the Get data in Power BI Desktop documentation. Mobile Rotate view in the mobile report footer The Rotate view button is now available in the Power BI Mobile report footer, letting you switch layouts with one tap for larger visuals and a wider view—even when your phone is locked in portrait orientation. This is especially helpful for reports that don't have a mobile-optimized layout, which open in portrait by default. Just tap Rotate view to get a wider, more readable view, then tap again to switch back. This feature is rolling out soon to Power BI Mobile for iOS and Android - stay tuned! Figure: Tapping Rotate view in the report footer to get a larger view of the report. To learn more about the actions in the report footer, refer to the Explore reports in the Power BI mobile apps documentation. To learn how to build a mobile-optimized layout for your reports, see the mobile layout documentation. Export data to Excel in the Power BI mobile app Export data from Power BI report visuals directly from your phone or tablet. With Export data now available in the Power BI mobile app for iOS and Android, you can quickly take the data behind a visual into Excel for further analysis or sharing, without switching to the Power BI service on another device. To export, open a report visual in focus mode or open the visual’s More options (…) menu, and select Export data. The export starts automatically using the supported Excel format for that visual. The exported data reflects your current filters, slicers, drill state, permissions, and row-level security. When the file is ready, use your device’s sharing options to open, save, or share it. Figure: Exporting data from a report visual to Excel in the Power BI mobile app, via focus mode or open the visual’s More options (…) menu. To learn more, see Export data from a Power BI visualization. Embedded Analytics Enhancements to Power BI Embedding in SharePoint Online Embedding Power BI reports and report pages in SharePoint Online is now easier. With our new UI, you now have the option to directly select the workspace you want to embed in SharePoint, rather than copying and pasting the full URL. Simply navigate to SharePoint online, add Power BI content, and the new menu will allow you to browse workspaces and reports you have access to. Alongside embedding reports and report pages, you can now also embed a visual. Simply select the "Embed a single visual" toggle to select the specific visual you want to embed. Figure: Embedding a Power BI visual with the new SharePoint Online Experience. More details about these enhancements can be found in the Power BI and SharePoint Documentation. Developers + API’s Faster PBIP development with instant reloads and VS Code integration A faster PBIP editing experience is here. If you're working with Power BI Projects (PBIP), you can now edit project files outside Power BI Desktop and reload those changes instantly, without restarting the application. Power BI Desktop automatically detects changes made to your files and prompts you to apply them with a single click. Figure: Apply external changes prompt in Power BI Desktop. To make editing even easier, we've also added a built-in entry point that opens your project directly in Visual Studio Code. Figure: Open Visual Studio Code entry point in Power BI Desktop. Whether you're making edits in VS Code or using external tools to update your project files, you can now move seamlessly between your tools and Power BI Desktop without breaking your flow. Learn more Third party custom visuals Need more visual options for your report? Power BI reports support custom visuals built to fit your exact needs. Browse hundreds of options in AppSource, also available directly from Power BI Desktop, or develop your own and add it to a single report, share it across your organization, or publish it to AppSource for the community. You can even develop a custom visual tailored to your specific requirements with AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot Free. The following are some updates from the community-based custom visuals you can use in your reports today. PowerGantt Chart by Nova Silva The PowerGantt Chart helps teams plan, track, and communicate project timelines directly in Power BI. This month's update is shaped by your feedback, and we're grateful to the community of users whose suggestions keep guiding how the visual evolves. We've added three enhancements that give you finer control over how schedules and baselines are displayed. What's New? Baseline customization – Set the baseline bar size relative to the actual task bar and move milestone icons onto the baseline so planned versus actual delivery is easy to compare. Squared bar edges – Choose squared edges on item bars for a cleaner, more technical look. Vertical grouping – Group tasks vertically to organize large project structures by phase, team, or workstream. Whether you're managing product launches, construction schedules, or multi-team programs, these refinements make complex timelines easier to read briefly. Project managers, PMOs, and analysts gain sharper baseline comparisons, cleaner layouts, and better navigation across busy projects. Try the PowerGantt Chart for FREE now on your own project data by downloading it from the AppSource. Questions or remarks? Visit us at: NovaSilva. Slicer Panel by Powerviz Powerviz Slicer Panel is an advanced, all-in-one slicer that combines lists, dropdowns, sliders, buttons, date pickers, switches, and text slicers in one panel. With built-in templates, full customization, and import/export, it makes filtering smarter, simpler, and more interactive. Key Features Multiple Slicers in One Build: Bring together a wide variety of slicer types, including dropdown, expanded list, date, button, text, slider, and switch slicers, all within a single, unified panel, to filter your entire report from one place. Display Mode: Switch between Canvas, Pop-up, and Pop-up by Slicer. Orientation & Position: Arrange slicers and dock the panel top, bottom, left, or right. Panel Header: Show slicer icon, text, applied count, search, clear, and saved slicers. Slicer Action Icons: Edit, expand/collapse, sort, clear, rank, duplicate, or delete each slicer. Add Tabs: Group slicers into tabs for organized filtering. Saved Slicer: Store filter selections as reusable states. Conditional Formatting: Style slicer values with rule-based formatting. Advanced Search: Search across slicers and fields instantly. Other features included Templates, Import/ Export Themes, Search within Slicer, Ranking, Sorting, and more. Try Slicer Panel visual for FREE from App Source Check out all features of the visual Step-by-step instructions YouTube Video Learn more about visuals Follow Powerviz on LinkedIn Figure: From multiple slicer types to display modes, orientation, and saved slicers, every feature is designed to make your filtering more flexible, interactive, and effortless. Drill Down Map PRO by ZoomCharts When visualizing data with geographic coordinates, what better way to do it than literally placing it on a map? That’s why map charts are a growingly popular visualization type in Power BI reports, and the Drill Down Map PRO custom visual by ZoomCharts expands on the capabilities of map charts. Node Clustering: Multiple nearby nodes can create clusters and even display the values as pie charts. Simply zoom in to drill down. Base Layer Customization: Choose between AzureMaps or any custom tileserver, use your own images as the base layer, or disable it entirely. Custom Shape Layers: Enable up to 10 individually customizable shape layers. Use preset shapes or import your own KML/GeoJSON files. Conditional Formatting: Automatically apply color fill to each area by comparing their values against other shapes or by using each shape’s own reference value. And More: Paginated tooltips, custom tooltip fields, auras, node images, lasso tool. Figure: Reveal deeper insights with clustering, pie charts, custom shape layers, and flexible base map options tailored to your reporting needs. Figure: Customize every aspect of your map with conditional formatting, node images, auras, advanced tooltips, and intuitive selection tools. Drill Down Map PRO works incredibly well with other visuals by dynamically cross-filtering data, enabling you to build even more insightful and user-friendly Power BI reports. Get Drill Down Map PRO on AppSource Closing That's a wrap for the August 2026 Power BI Feature Summary. This month's release includes improvements across reporting, modeling, data connectivity, mobile experiences, embedded analytics, and developer workflows, along with continued investments in Copilot, accessibility, and Direct Lake capabilities. We hope these updates help you build, manage, and share data experiences more effectively. As always, we appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing how you're using these features in your organization.
Power BI July 2026 Feature Summary
Welcome to the July 2026 Power BI update! This month, we're introducing new capabilities across reporting, modeling, mobile, and embedded analytics. Highlights include expanded modern visual defaults, conditional formatting improvements for line charts and legends, new org app capabilities and APIs, Model Options in the Power BI Service, and TMDL View on the web. Let's take a look at what's new this month. Download Power BI Desktop Events and Announcements Your Road to the Power BI DataViz World Championships Round Two of the Power BI DataViz World Championships is now open, with Round Three still ahead. Plus, one wildcard finalist will be selected from standout submissions across all stages of the championship. Is this your moment? The only way to find out is to enter. Every submission is a chance to learn something new, connect with the community, and showcase your creativity. You might surprise yourself along the way and earn a place in the finals. Join now. Data Days Goes Through August 7th Looking for your next Power BI breakthrough? Data Days brings together the best of data, AI, and analytics in free live sessions. Learn new skills, get inspired, and connect with the community. Learn more. Will we see you in Barcelona? The European Microsoft Fabric and SQL Community Conference take place September 28 to October 1 in Barcelona, Spain, bringing together Microsoft experts and community leaders for exclusive content, live demos, and key announcements, along with more than 130 sessions spanning Fabric, Azure AI, Databases, Power BI, and Microsoft Purview. And of course, the live Dataviz World Championships finale! The most recent event in Atlanta sold out. Don’t miss out and register for the Barcelona event with code FABCMTY200 to save €200. General Deprecation of Old File Picker experience in Power BI Desktop In April we deprecated the old file picker experience in Power BI Desktop. Starting in October, users still utilizing versions of Power BI desktop from March 2026 or earlier will no longer be able to save and share Power BI files to One Drive and SharePoint. Please ensure you update Power BI desktop to keep using this functionality. Note: No action is required from users as part of this deprecation; this is simply an informational announcement. Reporting Update your report defaults and use color palettes with the modern visual defaults (Preview) We've expanded the Modern Visual Defaults preview with a new Customize current theme experience directly in the Format pane. You can now adjust report-wide defaults that apply to all visuals on every page—without manually styling each one. Choose from color palettes to change your report's colors while preserving other customizations or use the expanded visual-level options to style or toggle elements like background, border, header icons, tooltips and shadow on or off across your entire report. You can also fine-tune border thickness, corner radius, and default padding. Every new visual you add automatically inherits your styling, so your report stays consistent as you build. Beyond visuals, you can update page size, background color, and wallpaper across all pages at once, and apply filter pane formatting to current and new pages. These customizations create a custom theme layered on top of your base theme. Styling applied to individual pages or visuals takes precedence, and you can reset any setting to re-enforce the theme defaults. When you're finished, export your custom theme to use in other reports or add it to your organizational themes so others can create uniformly styled reports. To get started, enable the Modern visual defaults and customize theme improvements preview in Options, then when nothing is selected on the page, choose the Customize current theme option in the Format pane. Visit our documentation to learn more about visual defaults in Power BI reports. Conditional formatting for line charts and legends (Generally Available) One of the highly requested features from the Power BI community is here: conditional formatting now extends to line charts and visuals with legends. This update applies to bar charts, column charts, pie charts, donut charts, and line charts—when these visuals have a legend, you can conditionally format their colors. For line charts, format line colors using a gradient based on the total value of each line, or by the category it represents. For example, when overlaying multiple years by month, apply a gradient that displays the most recent year in blue while older years fade to lighter shades of grey. Markers and series labels automatically inherit the conditional formatting until you choose to color them differently. For visuals with category legends, you can ensure consistent colors across your entire report. If multiple visuals use Segment as their legend, color each segment using a single DAX measure. Every visual displays the same color for the same category. When you need to change a segment's color, update the measure once and all visuals reflect the new color instantly. Add data-driven colors to your reports today! Learn more about how to use conditional formatting in other places at Conditional formatting in Power BI visuals. Report page tab navigation improvements (Generally Available) Managing reports with many pages is now easier. Previously, when you dragged a page tab to reorder it, you couldn't move it past the visible tabs, making it difficult to move a page from the end of your report to the beginning. Now, when you drag a page tab toward the edge of the tab bar, the tabs continue to scroll until you reach the position where you want to place it. The arrow buttons that page through report tabs are also more precise, ensuring you see each report page tab as you navigate. These improvements make it faster to organize and navigate reports with dozens of pages. Learn more about working with report pages in Report View in Power BI Desktop. Simplified title spacing for visuals We've streamlined how spacing works in the title area of your visuals. The spacing properties now use a consistent "space above" approach—Space above subtitle, Space above divider, and Space above plot area—instead of the previous "space below" settings. This makes it easier to understand and control the gaps between title elements, and ensures visuals look consistent even when they have different combinations of subtitle and divider. Your existing reports and themes automatically adjust to the new settings without any change to their appearance. If you've configured title spacing in a custom theme, we recommend updating it to use the new "space above" properties for clarity and consistency going forward. Learn more about customizing visualization titles. Visuals calculations LOOKUP function now supports INFERRED mode for associated columns The LOOKUP function in visual calculations now accepts an optional AssociatedColumnsBehavior parameter with two values: EXPLICIT (default) and INFERRED. When you use INFERRED, the engine automatically identifies which axis columns are functionally determined by the coordinates you supply and fills them in before evaluating the lookup. This means a lookup that specifies Year, Quarter, and Month can return a value across all rows in the matrix, rather than only on the row where the current context exactly matches. When the parameter is omitted, LOOKUP behaves exactly as it does today—existing expressions continue to work without changes. When you explicitly supply a value for a column that would have been inferred, LOOKUP validates your value against the inferred value and returns BLANK if they conflict, providing consistent error handling across both modes. Org apps with audiences (Generally Available) With support for audiences, app creators can deliver different content experiences to different groups of users within the same app, making it easier to personalize content while managing a single app experience. Learn more in these blog posts, Org apps with audiences for Power BI and Fabric (Generally Available) or learn more about how org apps and audiences work. Bookmarks support for reports in org apps Users can now access bookmarks when viewing interactive reports in org apps. This includes both report bookmarks created by report authors and personal bookmarks users create for themselves, making it easy to return to saved report views with the filters, selections, and visual state they care about most. To learn more about bookmarks in the Power BI service, refer to the documentation. Storytelling (PowerPoint embed) support for reports and visuals in org apps Reports in org apps now support Storytelling in PowerPoint, allowing users to add live report pages and visuals from org app content into PowerPoint presentations. This extends the existing Storytelling experience to reports distributed through org apps, making it easier to present and share curated content across your organization. Learn more about how you can enhance your data storytelling in PowerPoint with live, interactive Power BI data. CRUD APIs (REST) for org apps and audiences Developers and administrators can now programmatically manage org apps and audiences using Microsoft Fabric REST APIs. New APIs support create, read, update, delete, and list operations for both org app items and audience items, enabling automation, deployment, and management scenarios at scale. Learn more about the org app item definition and org app audience item definition. CRUD APIs (REST) for paginated reports Paginated reports can now be managed through Microsoft Fabric REST APIs. New support for create, read, update, delete, and list operations enables developers and administrators to automate report lifecycle management, deployment workflows, and administrative processes. Learn more about the paginated report APIs and the paginated report definition. Modeling Measure descriptions in line with triple-slash (///) comments Good descriptions make a semantic model self-documenting. Until now, adding them was a two-step process: you authored your measures in DAX query view, then switched over to Model Explorer just to type the description in. Yet with the latest Desktop release, you can now add measure descriptions right where you write your measures, using the same triple-slash (///) syntax that TMDL already supports for both measure and function descriptions. Add one or more /// comment lines directly above your MEASURE definition, select “Update model with changes”, and the description is written straight into the model along with the measure definition. DEFINE /// Year-over-year sales growth, as a percentage. /// Returns BLANK when there is no prior-year value. MEASURE Sales[YoY Growth %] = ... Once it’s saved, the description travels with the measure: hover over the measure in DAX query view, in Model Explorer, or in the Data pane, and the description shows up in the tooltip next to the measure name, and it carries through to the quick queries DAX query view generates. Specifically, when you right-click a measure and choose Quick queries, and then select Define and evaluate (or any other Define option), Power BI generates a DEFINE MEASURE statement in DAX Query View that includes the description as /// comments above the measure definition, as in the following screenshot. It’s a small addition with a nice payoff — descriptions become part of the authoring flow, consistent across measures and UDFs. And it’s non-breaking: if you already use /// inside a measure body, nothing changes there. This is specifically about the comment lines above the MEASURE definition. Try it out in the July release of Power BI Desktop. For more details about how to work with measures in DAX query view, refer to Work with DAX query view in Power BI documentation. Model Options now available in Power BI Service We’re continuing to bring more semantic modeling capabilities to the web! With this update, the Model options dialog will now be available directly in web modeling, giving you greater control over key modeling-level settings, without needing to switch back to Power BI Desktop. The new Options dialog enables you to configure important behaviors and metadata that are defined at the model level (current file) in a centralized experience. The new Model Options dialog in web modeling includes the following settings: Type detection: enable/disable automatic detection of column types and headers for unstructured sources. Relationships: configure auto-detection behavior for relationships in the model. Time intelligence: enable/disable automatic creation of hidden date tables. Parallel loading of tables: set the concurrency mode used when loading tables. Locale for import: set the regional settings used to interpret numbers, dates and time in imported text. DirectQuery connections to this semantic model: Toggle whether other semantic models can connect to this semantic model using DirectQuery. When enabled, this model cannot be used as a DirectQuery source. (Direct Query only) Maximum connections per data source: limit how many concurrent DirectQuery connections can be opened to a single data source. For more details, refer to the Model Options in Power BI Service documentation. New: The semantic model settings pane becomes the default (Preview) Starting in August, when you open the settings for a semantic model in the Power BI Service, they open in the new settings pane instead of the full settings page. This change updates the default experience: the settings pane opens beside your content, so you can update refresh schedules, credentials, and other options without leaving your workspace or losing your current work context. Everything you manage on the settings page today is available in the pane, so the settings are fully configurable. If you'd rather keep using the legacy settings page, you can switch back at any time from within the pane. The settings pane first arrived in preview in May. Refer to the original semantic model settings pane announcement to learn what it offers and to review how semantic model settings work, refer to Edit Semantic Models In The Power BI Service. TMDL View on the Web Now, developers can script, modify, and apply changes to model objects directly in a code editor using Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL), without switching to Desktop or downloading model files. This experience provides immediate, code‑level visibility into all semantic model metadata (tables, measures, relationships, and more), enabling bulk edits, automation of repetitive tasks, and the reuse of definitions to improve consistency and productivity. For more details about TMDL view and the full list of capabilities in this release, refer to the documentation: Use Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) view in Power BI Desktop. Mobile Org app audiences are now in mobile apps Org app audiences in the Power BI mobile app extend a tailored org app experience from Power BI Service to users on iOS and Android. With this update, mobile and tablet users can open an org app and see and navigate content based on their assigned audience, so they can quickly find the reports, dashboards, and Power BI content most relevant to their role while on the go. Audiences in org apps help organizations deliver the right content to the right people from a single governed app experience. Instead of creating and managing multiple apps, app creators can define multiple audiences, control which items each audience sees, and tailor navigation for each group. On mobile, this results in a cleaner, more focused experience on smaller screens. Executives, managers, frontline workers, and department teams can each land in an app experience curated for their needs while still benefiting from centralized management of a single org app. This update helps close a key gap for customers adopting org apps. Org apps are the recommended way to package and distribute Power BI and Fabric content, and mobile access is essential for users who rely on Power BI away from their desks or in frontline scenarios. Organizations that use audiences to personalize org app content can now extend those tailored experiences to Power BI mobile apps. To learn more about org apps and audiences, refer to the org apps blog, Org apps with audiences for Power BI and Fabric. Third-party custom visuals Need more visual options for your report? Power BI reports support custom visuals built to fit your exact needs. Browse hundreds of options in AppSource, also available directly from Power BI Desktop, or develop your own and add it to a single report, share it across your organization, or publish it to AppSource for the community. You can even develop a custom visual tailored to your specific requirements with AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot Free. These are some updates from the community-based custom visuals you can use in your reports today. Drill Down Scatter PRO by ZoomCharts Drill Down Scatter PRO brings a new level of interactivity to scatter chart analysis in Power BI. Users can seamlessly drill down through multiple hierarchy levels, zoom into dense data clusters, and pan across large datasets to investigate trends, outliers, and relationships with precision. The visual helps consumers report from high-level summaries to detailed insights without leaving the report. Advanced features such as dynamic regression lines, area and threshold highlighting, area selection, and lasso selection make it easier to identify patterns, compare segments, and focus on the most relevant data points. With over 200 formatting options, authors can tailor the visual to match business requirements and branding while creating highly engaging analytical experiences. Drill Down Scatter PRO is ideal for customer segmentation, sales performance analysis, operational monitoring, and any scenario where users need to explore large volumes of data interactively. By combining powerful analytics with intuitive navigation, the visual enables faster discovery of actionable insights directly within Power BI. To get started, download it now. Neutral variance color in Zebra BI Tables You're reviewing a Revenue vs Plan report. Anything within ±5% is considered fine, but Actuals are 3% below plan and everything flashes red. The whole dashboard looks alarming. Sound familiar? This is the fix. With Neutral variance color in Zebra BI Tables and Charts, you can now define a tolerance zone where small swings stay neutral. Variances beyond your set limits still turn red or green, so you instantly see where real action is needed. Where it helps: Revenue vs. Plan: "Set ±5% tolerance. Q4 revenue at -3%? Stays neutral. Drops to -7%? Turns red." Spend vs. Budget: Could we keep the current detail level but add context: "Department at 95% of budget? Neutral. Hits 115% or drops to 85%? Both turn red - overspend wastes money, underspend may signal delivery issues." On-time Delivery or HR KPIs: Could we pick one specific example - may be HR? Something like the below? Employee Turnover: "Annual target 12% ±2%. At 13.5%? Neutral. At 15%? Red alert." Now your dashboards reflect reality: not every variance needs a red alert. Instead, you can: Focus on what matters: Stop investigating variances within acceptable limits. Align with business rules: Your CFO says ±5% is fine, your dashboard should too. Achieve faster executive reviews: Leadership can scan dashboards and immediately spot true outliers. Try it now in Zebra BI Tables and Charts. Heatmap by Powerviz The Powerviz Heatmap visualizes data density and value distribution using color gradients, transforming complex datasets into an intuitive matrix format. It is ideal for identifying patterns, correlations, and outliers, aiding data-driven decision-making. Key Features: Shapes: Choose from Default, Fixed, or Diverging built-in shapes. Data Colors: Offers 30+ palettes, color-blind mode, and custom color options. Data Labels: Select from different styles available or add custom labels with formatting. Grid Lines: Improve data readability with visual grid lines. Reference Lines: Highlight key points using X-axis and Y-axis lines. Totals: Display row and column totals with advanced bar customization. Null Values: Customize null values (Blank /NA / Null/ ”0”) and their styling. Small Multiples: Split visuals into smaller ones using selected fields. Conditional Formatting: Spot outliers with Value/ Percentage/ Ranking based rules. Ranking: Filter Top/Bottom N rows or columns. Other features included Axis Settings, Grid View, Sorting, Show Condition and more. Resources Try Heatmap visual for FREE from App Source Check out all features of the visual Step-by-step instructions YouTube Video Learn more about visuals Follow Powerviz on LinkedIn Gantt by Profitbase Reviewing a project plan, stakeholders rely on color to quickly identify at-risk tasks, and owner-specific highlights. Version 3.1 of Gantt by Profitbase lets you apply conditional formatting rules independently to specific levels of your hierarchy. The new version also includes: Expand and collapse rows based on a condition, so the right level of detail opens automatically based on the rules added. A default scroll position at the start of the chart. Include the last day in duration calculations For more feature details, refer to the Gantt by Profitbase v3.1 release notes. Additional capabilities for Gantt by Profitbase: Unlimited hierarchy Format hierarchy levels individually Supports additional columns Supports multiple milestones per task Apply expansion styles Zoom in/out using zoom buttons Apply highlighting curtains to important periods Sort, Filter and Search for any information across all columns Use theming templates to set formatting Ragged Hierarchy Dynamic event markers from data Resources Version 3.1 Youtube video Gantt by Profitbase wiki Power BI Visuals YouTube Playlist Support Forum Learn more and download the visual on AppSource Until next month That’s a wrap for July! This month’s enhancements continue our focus on making Power BI easier to build, manage, and scale across your organization. From report-wide formatting improvements and expanded org app capabilities to new web modeling experiences and developer APIs, these updates help streamline both the authoring and consumption experience. We hope you enjoy trying out these new capabilities and, as always, we welcome your feedback as we continue to improve Power BI. Download Power BI Desktop
Monitor and Explore your Stripe data in Power BI
Stripe is an advanced payment platform for online businesses. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, thousands of businesses use Stripe to accept payments in over 130 currencies, from anyone in the world. By connecting Power BI with your existing Stripe account, you’ll be able to use the Power BI Stripe content pack to monitor, explore, and visualize your Stripe activity. The content pack allows you to easily connect your Stripe data and begin to discover insights with the out-of-the box dashboard, reports, and curated data set on Power BI. This post will explain how the Power BI content pack can help you explore your Stripe data. For additional details on how to get started, please see the Power BI Stripe content pack help page. After you connect to the content pack using your Stripe credentials, your data will begin loading and a dashboard will be automatically created. From the out-of-box dashboard, you have the ability to select any of the tiles and further drill into the 4 reports including Events, Charges, Customers and Invoices. For example, if you select the Events visual, it brings you to the Events report. Once you are on a report you can hover over the visualizations to see additional details. This report highlights key event summaries and insights into the volume of the various events and their monetary impact. Reports are interactive, from this report you can select a specific currency from the currency slicer to filter the data for that specific currency. Switching into Edit Report shows all the underlying tables and fields available from the curated data set, allowing you further customize your reports and dashboards. From any of the reports you can pin the visualizations or tiles to the dashboard by hovering over it and selecting the pin icon. New tiles can be added or existing tiles moved to customize your dashboard. You can also try asking a question of your data, such as "total events by date" or "charges by charge type in a donut chart". Any of the results can also be pinned to your dashboard. After the initial import, the dashboard and the reports continue to update daily. You can control the refresh schedule on the dataset. With the Power BI Stripe content pack, you have an initial set of metrics and customer insights enabling you to explore your data even further. We’re always interested in hearing your feedback – please contact us at https://support.powerbi.com to let the team know how your experience was and if there’s anything we can do better. We look forward to your feedback! Try Power BI Follow @MSPowerBI on Twitter Visit the Power BI Community
Dataflows: Thank you for eight years of Gen1—and why Gen2 is the future
Updated on 20 April 2026: Thanks so much for all the engagement on this topic since the original publishing of this blog post on 2 April 2026. We’ve seen several recurring questions, and we’d like to clarify our position on a few key points. Dataflow Gen1 remains supported, but it is in a legacy state and won’t receive future innovation. We understand many customers have built important, business‑critical solutions on Gen1, and those existing workloads can continue to run while future investments are planned around Dataflow Gen2. Primary call to action for Premium customers: For Premium customers who already have access to Fabric, Dataflow Gen2 is the recommended path to take advantage of the latest improvements across functionality, productivity, performance, pricing, scale, reliability, and more. Many teams find it helpful to start by evaluating Gen2 for new or evolving workloads where these benefits can be realized quickly. Guidance for Pro and Premium Per User (PPU) customers: Many customers rely on Dataflow Gen1 in Pro/PPU today, and it can continue to be the right choice depending on the scenario. If Gen1 best fits your current use case, it remains supported and existing workloads can continue to run as-is. As we introduce new Dataflow Gen2 paths for Pro/PPU scenarios, we’ll share clear guidance and recommended steps to help with a smooth transition. GCC support for Premium customers: For customers using Dataflows Gen1 in GCC environments on Premium, Dataflow Gen2 support in GCC will be available before any future transition milestones, ensuring a supported upgrade path. More granular Fabric controls: Customers have asked for finer‑grained enablement than today’s all‑or‑nothing Fabric switch. Work is underway to provide more granular administrative controls, including the ability to enable only Dataflow Gen2, so capabilities can be rolled out incrementally with the right governance. Original post (2 April 2026): For more than eight years, customers have relied on Power BI Dataflows (Gen1) as a core part of their analytics solutions. We’re grateful for the trust you placed in the Power Query experience to build reusable, low-code data preparation pipelines that power reports, semantic models, and downstream analytics. Now, we’re sharing an update on the future of Dataflows. Dataflows Gen2 builds on everything you know from Gen1—preserving the familiar Power Query authoring experience—while delivering major improvements in scale, flexibility, cost efficiency, and manageability. Going forward, all new Dataflow innovation will land only in Dataflows Gen2. The future of Dataflows Gen1 Power BI Dataflows Gen1 has reached the end of active innovation and is moving into a Legacy state: Existing Gen1 dataflows will continue to work for the foreseeable future. However, specific retirement dates for Gen1 are being finalized, and we’ll share details as plans progress. For customers running Gen1 at Premium capacity, we will provide at least 12 months’ notice before Dataflow Gen1 is retired. (If you’re using Gen1 on Pro or Premium-Peruser, we still strongly recommend planning a move to Dataflows Gen2 to take advantage of the latest investments.) In the meantime, Gen1 artifacts will remain available and will be clearly marked as Legacy in product experiences, including the New Artifact menu. No new features are planned for Dataflows Gen1. Support will be limited to a narrow set of high impact issues, where changes can be delivered safely within the existing architecture. Many of the remaining Gen1 limitations would require significant architecture changes and are best addressed by moving to Dataflows Gen2, which was designed to solve these scenarios more comprehensively. The previous statements apply to all Dataflows Gen1—including usage on Pro, PPU, and Premium licenses. What’s new in Dataflows Gen2 Dataflows Gen2 retains the familiar Power Query experience while introducing substantial platform-level improvements to scale, performance, governance, and cost efficiency. The following updates provide additional details on each benefit area to help customers understand the full scope of Gen2 enhancements. More flexible destinations Dataflows Gen2 supports a significantly broader range of output destinations, enabling alignment with diverse data architectures across business, departmental, and enterprise scenarios. SharePoint and OneDrive are ideal for business users who need refreshed files (CSV, Excel) for downstream workflows, Office automation, or integrations with Power Automate and Teams. Azure Data Lake Storage is a great fit for customers building scalable ingestion pipelines for data science, machine learning, or lakehouse scenarios. Azure SQL Database / SQL MI enables operational reporting, standardized relational storage, and hybrid analytics scenarios. Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse / Warehouse / SQL analytics endpoints are the most seamless destination option for customers aligning with the Fabric vision. Gen2 integrates deeply with Fabric runtimes, unlocking better performance, more consistent semantics, and governance alignment. Snowflake and other cloud databases support multi‑cloud architectures and reduces friction for enterprise customers already standardized on multiple warehouse technologies. This broader range of destinations allows teams to use dataflows as a general-purpose low-code data ingestion and transformation layer, enabling many more scenarios never supported before with Dataflow Gen1. Improved performance and scale Dataflows Gen2 is built on the Fabric runtime and a modernized execution engine that delivers a step‑change in performance, reliability, and scalability. Modern query evaluation leverages Fabric's elastic compute layer to automatically manage scaling behavior, minimizing the need for manual optimization or workload tuning. Fast Copy technology supports high-throughput ingestion into Fabric destinations, enabling sustained data movement measured in gigabytes per minute. Parallelized execution enables multiple partitions and transformation steps to be processed concurrently, significantly reducing refresh durations compared to Gen1. Enhanced support for large datasets includes improvements in memory handling, high-cardinality data processing, and unbounded ingestion patterns. Predictable refresh behavior ensures more consistent performance under varying workload conditions. Together, these improvements establish a more durable and high-performance engine for data preparation, especially in enterprise environments that rely on large or frequently refreshed dataflows. Built-in AI assistance Dataflows Gen2 introduces integrated AI capabilities designed to accelerate development, improve quality, and reduce the learning curve for users working with complex transformations. Copilot-assisted authoring converts natural-language instructions into Power Query logic, improving productivity and lowering the barrier to entry for users with limited M expertise. Code explanation capabilities translate complex or legacy M scripts into easy-to-understand natural language descriptions, improving maintainability and simplifying onboarding. Automated performance and foldability recommendations help users align transformations to foldable patterns, resulting in faster load times and lower compute consumption. AI-powered data quality insights assist with identifying semantic types, outliers, and join keys and detecting common data issues early in the pipeline. These capabilities provide consistent guidance across the authoring lifecycle and support organizations with diverse skill levels. Richer diagnostics Gen2 introduces a more comprehensive set of diagnostics designed to improve traceability, troubleshooting, and operational reliability. Detailed refresh history now includes detailed timing information to clarify where time is spent during execution. Expanded logging and instrumentation provide visibility into foldability decisions, connector behaviors, authentication flows, and network operations. More consistent refresh semantics across all destinations ensures uniform behavior regardless of the target storage system. Greater operational transparency supports root-cause analysis and reduces the time required to identify and resolve failures. These diagnostic improvements help teams manage dataflows more efficiently and maintain higher levels of operational readiness. Tiered pricing and potential cost savings The introduction of a tiered pricing model is a major advantage for customers transitioning from Gen1. Gen2 decouples Dataflows execution from Premium capacity consumption, aligning compute usage with Fabric’s capacity unit (CU)–based architecture. This model allows customers to pay only for the compute resources required rather than maintaining always-on Premium capacity for workloads that may be intermittent or variable. Elastic scaling ensures that high-volume or burst workloads can consume proportionally more compute during peak times, while lighter workloads incur lower costs. Organizations with unpredictable or seasonal refresh patterns may see material cost reductions compared to Gen1 running on Premium capacity. This flexible cost model provides more predictable and efficient resource utilization, particularly for enterprises with diverse or rapidly evolving data refresh patterns. Our recommendation: Start planning your upgrade If you’re starting a new project, we strongly recommend using Dataflows Gen2. It offers better performance, richer diagnostics, built‑in AI, broader destination support, and a more flexible cost model. For existing Gen1 dataflows, now is the right time to begin planning your upgrade: Use Save as Dataflow Gen2 for quick, low effort upgrades of individual dataflows. For larger migration scenarios, the Save As API enables bulk migration and automation, supporting CI/CD workflows. For programmatic or large‑scale upgrades, refer to the Migrate to Dataflow Gen2 (CI/CD) guidance. Starting now allows you to modernize incrementally, beginning with a subset of your portfolio while keeping all your Power Query skills fully transferable. Thank you Thank you again for your long-standing investment in Dataflows and Power Query. We’re excited to support your transition to Dataflows Gen2 and to help you unlock new capabilities for the next generation of analytics solutions.Power BI June 2026 Feature Summary
This month, we’re continuing to focus on making every day work a little easier—whether that’s building reports, modeling data, or just getting answers faster. You’ll see progress across Copilot and newer AI-driven experiences, along with a set of practical updates to reporting that help reduce repetitive work.
