Power BI September 2026 Feature Summary
As the Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, data, and analytics community gathers in Barcelona for the European Microsoft Fabric + SQL Community Conference, this month is packed with news. From new Copilot and AI experiences to reporting, modeling, data connectivity, developer enhancements, and mobile updates, we're sharing the latest innovations designed to help you build, analyze, and act on your data more effectively. Whether you're joining us in person or following along from afar, this roundup is your guide to everything new across Power BI this month. 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 using versions of Power BI Desktop from March 2026 or earlier will no longer be able to save and share Power BI files to OneDrive and SharePoint. Please ensure you update Power BI Desktop to keep using this functionality. Copilot and AI Power BI Agentic Experiences (Generally Available) Agentic development in Power BI is real, and it is already delivering value: whether you are starting from scratch with greenfield projects or building upon existing solutions in brownfield scenarios, BI developers can delegate the work to an agent, review the result, and refine it rather than starting from scratch every time. What makes this work is tools and context. Through Work IQ and Fabric IQ, the agent grounds its work in your business context—your data, your semantics, and the way your organization operates. Through skills—published by Microsoft in skills-for-fabric, shared by the community, or personalized by your own team—it also picks up your development context: the modeling and reporting practices, conventions, and workflows your team expects. Through tools such as the Power BI Authoring MCP server and the Power BI Desktop Bridge CLI, the agent can act on that context: reading and changing semantic models and reports directly, reloading its edits in Power BI tools, and reviewing its own work. Point an agent at a requirements document or a screenshot of the layout you want, describe what you need, and the agent can help accelerate the initial authoring pass, which you can then review and refine. rt authoring skills. What's available today The powerbi-authoring plugin in microsoft/skills-for-fabric bundling the semantic modeling and reporting agent skills and tools. It was recently updated to support report authoring for remote semantic models in Power BI service and an expanded range of supported report visuals, including custom visuals. To learn more, refer to the Power BI skills documentation. The local Power BI Authoring MCP server allows the agent to edit semantic models in Power BI Desktop. To learn more, refer to the Power BI Authoring MCP documentation. Power BI Desktop Bridge lets an agent reload changes in a running instance of Power BI Desktop and capture screenshots to check its own work. To learn more, refer to the Power BI Desktop Bridge documentation. Browser-based validation for remote report editing, so the agent can validate a report using a headless browser (an automated browser that runs without a visible user interface). Removing the local Power BI Desktop dependency allows the full authoring loop to run without Power BI Desktop, extending the agentic experience to Mac users and others who do not rely on a local installation. To learn more and get started, refer to the Power BI agentic documentation. Microsoft 365 Copilot is coming to Power BI (Preview) Copilot experiences have emerged across the applications people use every day, bringing AI closer to the work happening in each product. But this can also feel fragmented, with different entry points, separate conversations, and uncertainty about which Copilot agent to use. Our goal is to create a consistent Copilot experience that is available wherever people work. People should not have to leave the application they are using to find it. Microsoft 365 Copilot should be available within their experience, carry relevant context across experiences, and connect to the specialized intelligence of each product. We’re taking an important step toward that goal with a preview of Microsoft 365 Copilot integrated directly into Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. This integration gives users a familiar place to bring together business context and trusted data. Shared conversation history lets them continue a discussion as they move between Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences instead of starting over in each application. ower BI experience, including integration with Work IQ. In Power BI, a question no longer has to stop with the numbers in a report. A sales leader could use Fabric IQ to identify which regions are behind plan, then use Work IQ to connect the results with customer emails, meetings, account plans, and documents. They could summarize the complete picture and even kick off actions and tasks in Cowork, all from inside Power BI. This work context and ability to move directly from insight to action were not available in the standalone Power BI Copilot experience. the Cowork integration into the Power BI experience, highlighting the full Microsoft 365 experience embedded into Power BI. A new setting in the Fabric admin portal will determine whether this integration is available by enabling or disabling its entry point in the navigation pane. It will be off by default, giving administrators time to evaluate the experience before introducing it to their organization. Administrators can enable it when they are ready and disable it if they need to pause access. This setting is independent of the existing setting for standalone Power BI Copilot. If both settings are enabled, users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see entry points for both experiences, and standalone Power BI Copilot will continue to appear on Home. If standalone Power BI Copilot is disabled and Microsoft 365 Copilot is enabled, users will see only the Microsoft 365 Copilot entry point. During the initial preview, the integrated experience is available only to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. These users receive the full Copilot Chat experience in Power BI and Fabric, bringing together Fabric data through Fabric IQ and relevant Microsoft 365 context through Work IQ. Existing permissions and governance controls continue to determine which content each user can access. Support for a broader Fabric audience will follow. This expansion will give Fabric users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license access to an integrated Copilot experience tailored to their available capabilities. The experience may differ from the full licensed offering, but it will extend Fabric IQ and conversational data experiences to more types of Fabric users. The preview will roll out with the setting turned off by default, with administrators choosing when to enable it for their organization. This is an important step toward one Copilot that meets people wherever they work, connecting the context surrounding each decision with trusted business data. To learn more, refer to the Copilot in Power BI documentation. Power BI data answers in Microsoft Copilot Chat (Generally Available) Users can find and ask questions about Power BI reports and semantic models directly from Microsoft 365 Copilot. They can search for relevant Power BI content, attach a report or provide a link, and ask questions in natural language. Powered by Fabric IQ, the experience uses the data, measures, relationships, and business logic already defined in Power BI to provide grounded answers. Users can also bring Power BI insights into conversations that include their Microsoft 365 work context, such as emails, meetings, and documents. Microsoft 365 Copilot now supports Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies and information protection controls for this experience. This helps organizations adopt conversational analytics while applying their existing policies for identifying, classifying, and protecting sensitive data. The experience continues to respect existing Power BI permissions and Microsoft 365 governance controls. Users can only access Power BI content they are authorized to view, and administrators retain control over whether Fabric data is available in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Organizations can use Power BI data answering in Microsoft 365 Copilot with production support and service commitments. This milestone makes it easier for users to bring trusted business data into the flow of work without leaving Microsoft 365 Copilot or creating a separate agent. To learn more, refer to the Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (Frontier) documentation. Fabric IQ Plugin in Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork (Generally Available) Power BI data is available where multi-step work happens, so a business question, the analysis behind it, and the follow-up it triggers stay in one place. To ground a task in Power BI, users can search for relevant content, attach a report, or paste a link to a report or semantic model. Questions are answered using the data, measures, relationships, and business logic already defined in the semantic model. Coverage now extends to reports published through organizational apps, with improvements to content discovery, large model handling, schema selection, Verified Answers, and row-level value search. The plugin also carries forward the governance controls organizations rely on in Power BI: Existing access controls: Power BI permissions and row-level security determine which reports and semantic models each user can reach. Citations and sensitivity labels: Responses cite the Power BI content behind an answer and surface the Microsoft Purview Information Protection label applied to it, so users can see where a number came from and how it is classified. From insight to action: With Fabric IQ, users can analyze Power BI reports using natural language, uncover key findings, and put those findings to work right away in Cowork. Whether they are summarizing business performance, investigating a trend, or answering a data question, Fabric IQ turns trusted organizational data into outcomes. To learn more about supported scenarios, setup, and current considerations, refer to the Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork documentation. For licensing and pricing information, refer to Microsoft 365 Copilot plans and pricing. Build Fabric Apps more easily in GitHub Copilot App (Preview) Fabric Apps were introduced in June as an AI-first way to build custom web apps with Microsoft Fabric as the backend. This month we’re excited to share that building these Fabric Apps on your governed data has become even easier with the GitHub Copilot App, which gives you a natural language chat interface instead of a command-line interface. . To try it out, start by downloading the GitHub Copilot App. Then navigate to Customize > Plugins > Rayfin, and select Install to enable our dedicated plugin: Rayfin plugin in GitHub Copilot App. Once the plugin is enabled, simply start a new chat and work with Copilot to help plan your Fabric data app. After you review and approve the plan, ask the agent to execute it and specify the workspace where you want to deploy the app. . We look forward to seeing the amazing apps you build! Check out our community gallery for inspiration. Enhanced Report Consumption Copilot with Fabric IQ When viewing a Power BI report, you can enable Fabric IQ from the Copilot pane to better answer complex questions about your data. This enhancement merges existing Fabric IQ capabilities into Power BI Copilot report viewing mode, allowing Copilot to use a multi-step approach to evaluate data in the semantic model and refine its approach when generating a response. . With Fabric IQ enabled, Copilot can: Provide better answers to questions about your data based on detailed reasoning capabilities directly into the report viewing experience. Show reasoning steps to help you understand how Copilot provided an answer. Generate Fabric visuals to help you further analyze your data. Answers can include column, bar, stacked, line, area, pie, donut, scatter visuals. Provide the underlying DAX query and data table used to generate a response. . To learn more, refer to the Ask Copilot questions about your data documentation. New control for Copilot access to semantic models Power BI now provides semantic model editors with greater control over how Copilot can be used with their data. Users with write permissions can block read-only users from accessing a semantic model through Copilot and Microsoft’s remote MCP tools, supporting governance, compliance, and access-control requirements. The setting applies across Copilot experiences that query the semantic model, including Power BI Copilot experiences; Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Cowork; and data agents, remote Fabric MCP servers, and Power BI MCP servers. When disabled, users with read-only access won't be able to access that semantic model through these experiences. By default, the setting remains enabled to preserve the current behavior. This setting appears in the Copilot section with the following description: “Allow any person with read-only access to use AI (i.e. Copilot, Microsoft’s MCP tools) on the model and its related reports.” Setting that allows people with read-only permission to use AI experiences with the semantic model and its related reports. This update gives organizations a clear and enforceable way to control AI access to semantic model data while maintaining flexibility for semantic model editors. To learn more, refer to the Use Copilot with Semantic Models in Power BI documentation. Remote Power BI Authoring MCP Server (Preview) The Power BI Authoring MCP enables AI applications to create and modify semantic models in Fabric workspaces, without installing or maintaining anything local. This release also unblocks Mac users that want to use the Power BI Authoring MCP, because the server runs remotely and does not require local binaries. Use the following endpoint in AI applications such as GitHub Copilot App: https://api.fabric.microsoft.com/v1/mcp/powerbi/authoring The local Power BI Authoring MCP server, released in November 2025, remains generally available. It remains an option when an agent needs to work with Power BI Desktop, Power BI Project (PBIP) or TMDL files on disk. The local and remote servers support the same authoring capabilities. We recommend using the remote server when local development is not required, such as when creating a Direct Lake semantic model in a Fabric workspace. In the following example, the AI agent uses one tool call to create a Direct Lake semantic model connected to a Fabric Lakehouse: To learn more, refer to the Power BI Authoring MCP server documentation. Reporting New Report Ribbon on the web (Preview) The Report ribbon is now available on the web, providing a consistent experience for report consumption and authoring that more closely matches Power BI Desktop. The ribbon organizes commands into clear, easy-to-navigate tabs, making it easier for users to discover features, interact with reports, and complete editing and authoring tasks directly in the browser. It also introduces the new Design ribbon and additional capabilities that were previously unavailable on the web, such as Format Painter. This milestone brings greater consistency to Power BI report-authoring experiences and marks an important step toward a seamless, end-to-end reporting workflow on the web. As web authoring capabilities continue to expand, users will be able to accomplish more of their reporting tasks directly in the browser, enabling a more streamlined, productive workflow. Enable the Try the new ribbon (preview) at the top of the page to explore the new experience. You can disable the setting to return to the previous ribbon. To learn more, refer to the Report Ribbon on the web documentation. Live Visual Sharing in Outlook on the web (Preview) For years, sharing data through email has been stagnant. You could send a screenshot, but it immediately became stale. You could attach a report link, but recipients had to leave their workflow to find the context they needed. And every follow-up question often meant another screenshot, another export, or another email thread. Now, we're bringing a new way to share Power BI insights directly in the flow of work with Live Visual Sharing in Outlook. With Live Visual Sharing, you can insert a Power BI visual into Outlook on the web and share it as a live, interactive experience. Recipients can view and interact with the visual directly in Outlook while staying connected to the latest underlying data. When a live visual is shared, Outlook renders an interactive version of the Power BI visual. Rather than embedding a static image, the experience remains connected to the source report and retrieves current data when viewed. Recipients can: Interact with the visual directly in Outlook on the web. Access tooltips and explore data points. See filters and slicers applied at the time of sharing. View refresh information and data context. Navigate back to the source report when deeper analysis is needed. The result is a richer conversation around data, directly within Outlook. Sharing a live visual is simple: Open a Power BI report in the service. Select a visual to share, then select More options in the upper-right corner. Select Share. Select Link to this visual. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to use the current view (apply existing filters and slicers) or not. After selecting Create Link, the link is copied to your clipboard. Open Outlook on the web. This experience is not available in the Outlook desktop app. Create a new email. Paste the link in the email. The visual renders in loop after a few seconds! You can also share the same link in a Loop page, and the visual will also be rendered. By combining Power BI, Outlook, and Loop-powered experiences, we're bringing data closer to where collaboration happens. Live Visual Sharing can support more informed, data-driven conversations in Outlook. To learn more about Live Visual Sharing in Outlook, refer to the Share live Power BI visuals documentation. More control and context in Power BI Home (Generally Available) Power BI Home now provides additional context and personalization options to help users discover the right content more efficiently. With new freshness indicators and customizable list views, you can quickly identify the most relevant reports and semantic models, prioritize the metadata that matters most, and tailor the experience to fit your workflow. Find the right content more easily Discover the right content more easily with new Data Refreshed and Modified Date columns in Power BI Home. By bringing the freshness signals already familiar from workspace list views into Home, users can more easily spot recently updated reports and semantic models, distinguish between similar items, and quickly find the content that matters most. Whether you're checking for the latest business updates or deciding which refreshed report to open, you can navigate with greater confidence and less guesswork. Customize your Home list view Not every user, team, or organization relies on the same signals to discover content. With Column Options, you can show or hide metadata, drag and reorder columns to prioritize the information you use most, and reset to the default view at any time. Whether you rely on freshness signals, endorsements, sensitivity labels, or location information, you can tailor Home to match your workflow. To learn more, refer to the Power BI Home documentation. Set and reset column widths in table and matrix (Generally Available) You can now right-click a column header in a table or matrix and select Set column width to specify its width in pixels. This option helps report viewers improve readability and fit the information they need within the available space, without changing the report author’s design or affecting other viewers. Changes made by viewers last only for the current viewing session. To restore the width defined by the report author, right-click the column header and select Reset column width. To learn more, refer to the Adjust column width in Power BI tables documentation. Visual calculations for small multiples (Generally Available) You can now use visual calculations in visuals with small multiples. Create calculations such as moving averages and compare trends across categories without adding separate measures to the semantic model. In the visual matrix, the field in the small multiples field well appears on the ROWPAGES axis. You can select ROWPAGES by itself or combine them with ROWS and COLUMNS to control how the calculation moves through the visual. e: Create a moving average visual calculation for a line chart divided into small multiples by country. To learn more, refer to the Visual calculations overview documentation. Design ribbon for Power BI reports (Generally Available) The new Design ribbon brings report styling tools together in one location. Apply a built-in or organizational theme, open the Theme pane to customize report-wide defaults, or import and download theme files directly from the ribbon. You can also quickly open Page size, Page background, and Wallpaper settings for the current page. Two new built-in themes, Dark and Soft dark, use the new Versa color palette and styling that closely follows the Fluent 2 base theme. These themes let you design against a dark report canvas and return to the default light theme before publishing if needed. To learn more, refer to the Use the Design ribbon in Power BI documentation. Slider color options for Slicer visual (Generally Available) Match your slicer's slider to your report design. The Slicer visual's Between, Before, After, and Date picker settings include a Slider format section where you can turn the slider on or off, set the handle style, and choose colors for the handles, selected range, and track. Handle options adjust based on the Responsive layout toggle (General > Properties > Advanced options). When Responsive is on, handles appear as circles with Fill color, Border, and Size. When Responsive is off, handles appear as rectangular bars with Border, Width, and Height. To learn more, refer to the Slicer visual in Power BI documentation. Translytical task flows show user date function (UDF) information in button action (Generally Available) The formatting pane now displays the Workspace, Function set, and Data function assigned to a data function button. These read-only details help you confirm that the button references the intended function without reopening the OneLake catalog. This information is especially useful when you review or troubleshoot reports that use several functions or connect to functions across multiple workspaces. To learn how to configure data function buttons, refer to Create a data function button in Power BI. Format pane headers stay visible as you scroll (Generally Available) Expanded section headers now remain visible at the top of the Format visual pane as you scroll through their settings. This update helps you keep track of the section you’re editing, especially when a section contains many formatting options. For example, when you scroll through color settings, the Colors and Data colors headers remain visible for context. To learn more about formatting visuals, refer to Get started formatting report visualizations. Pick the axis initial scroll position (Generally Available) Categorical axes—like month, year, or product name—show a scrollbar when there are more categories than fit in the visual. Until now, the scrollbar always started at the beginning of the data, so the oldest values displayed first. This month, you can set Initial scroll position to End on the axis Layout section, and the visual loads with the most recent data in view. Users can still scroll back to see earlier history. The option is available on stacked, clustered, and 100% stacked bar and column charts; line, area, stacked area, and 100% stacked area charts; line and stacked column and line and clustered column charts; ribbon, waterfall, and scatter charts with a categorical X-axis. Initial scroll positionset toEndon the X-axis. The scrollbar is positioned on the right, showing the most recent months first. To learn more, refer to the Customize x-axis and y-axis properties documentation. Azure Maps geocoding improvements (Generally Available) Large reference layers now render correctly when you filter your report. Reference layers add geographic context using points, lines, and polygons, such as locations, routes, postal codes, sales territories, and administrative regions. The Azure Maps visual renders up to 30,000 reference-layer features at a time. Previously, when a reference layer exceeded this limit, features excluded from the initial view could remain missing even after a report filter narrowed the data to a smaller area. . . . Now, Azure Maps re-evaluates the reference-layer features whenever report filters are applied. The unfiltered view is still limited to 30,000 features, but a filtered view accurately displays the relevant features, up to that limit. On-object interaction improvements (Preview) Based on your feedback during preview, we're introducing the first in a series of on-object interaction improvements, designed to make quick edits to your visuals easier. This month we're refining how you add data and manage some visual elements. The Build flyout now opens only when you select Add data, helping you stay focused when dragging and dropping data directly onto a visual or into the Build pane. We’ve also separated Title and Subtitle in the Add to your visual flyout, so you can manage them independently. In addition, title and subtitle are now turned off by default for matrix, table, and card visuals in reports that use the latest base theme. New reports automatically use the latest base theme. For existing reports, select Update theme in the Theme pane to apply this change. You can turn either element back on when needed. to your visual menu. To learn more, refer to the using on-object interaction with visuals and updating to the latest base theme documentation. Support for Fabric Apps in Org apps (Coming Soon) Soon, users will be able to include generative Fabric Apps alongside the reports, dashboards, notebooks, and other content in your Org Apps. For example, imagine you want people to rate the content in an Org App and share feedback about what would make it more useful. You can create a Fabric App for that experience and add it directly to the Org App. Whether you’re helping people explore what could happen next, act on an insight, or complete a specialized workflow, Fabric Apps give you a flexible new way to build for your audience without sending them somewhere else. Together, organizational apps and Fabric Apps provide a way to bring enterprise reporting, content, and tailored experiences together for your organization. Learn more about org apps and item types supported, including Fabric Apps. Changes to Power BI subscription email delivery Power BI is updating the platform used to deliver subscription emails as part of ongoing improvements to delivery reliability and long-term service health. As eligible subscriptions move to the updated platform, customers may notice changes to the sender identity and email formatting. Each subscription transfers automatically when it moves. Customers do not need to recreate it or change its schedule or recipients. After selecting Subscribe for an item, an information icon identifies a subscription that has moved to the updated email delivery platform. Learn more about changes to Power BI subscription emails. Increased Export to Excel row limits (Coming Soon) Many users export Power BI data to Excel for further analysis. This month, we're increasing the maximum number of rows that can be exported from table visuals using Data with current layout from 150,000 to 500,000. This increase helps you analyze larger datasets in Excel with fewer export operations. s. To learn more about exporting data from Power BI visuals, refer to Export data from a Power BI visualization. Value selection in Narrative visual We are replacing the Q&A natural language experience for creating dynamic values in the Narrative visual and text box with a more deterministic UI. This is due to the ongoing deprecation of the Q&A tool, and also based on feedback that it was hard to deterministically pick exact values through the Q&A experience. Authors can now create and edit custom values through a direct, deterministic UI: select a column or measure, apply any valid summarization, and add any type of filter. Auto-generated values are unchanged, and values previously authored with Q&A remain available as read-only. To learn more, refer to the Create Smart Narrative documentation. Modeling Create and edit DirectQuery semantic models in the Power BI service DirectQuery semantic models can now be created and edited directly in the Power BI service, eliminating the need to download and use Power BI Desktop. Previously, building models that query data sources in real time meant downloading Desktop, authoring the model, and publishing it to the web. Now, web-based modeling gives your team the freedom to: Work from any device: Mac, Linux and Windows users can now author DirectQuery models straight from the browser. Collaborate in real time: Multiple team members can work on the same semantic model simultaneously. Ditch the desktop loop: Skip the download-edit-republish cycle and update your models instantly in the service. Capabilities on the web Start from scratch: Connect to a supported data source and choose DirectQuery mode. Figure: Power Query interface displaying data source connection settings, with DirectQuery selected as the data connectivity mode. Full modeling control: Open existing DirectQuery models to manage relationships, write DAX and tweak table/column properties. : Model View in Power BI Service showing tables, relationships, and the properties panel for editing a DirectQuery semantic model. Flexible storage modes: Easily switch table storage modes from DirectQuery to Import or Dual if needed. : Properties pane that allows user to switch table storage modes from DirectQuery to Import or Dual. Thanks to this new capability, composite models are also available on the web! Head to the Power BI service and open one of your DirectQuery semantic models or create a brand-new one. We'd love to hear what you think! Learn more in the DirectQuery documentation. Approximate Distinct Count comes to Import and Direct Lake (Preview) Distinct count is one of the most resource-intensive operations in any analytical engine. As data cardinality grows, so do CPU and memory usage, often slowing down your interactive reports. APPROXIMATEDISTINCTCOUNT already offered a faster alternative for DirectQuery sources such as Azure SQL, Synapse, BigQuery, Databricks, and Snowflake. This month we're extending support to Import, Direct Lake on OneLake, and Direct Lake on SQL semantic models. DAX = APPROXIMATEDISTINCTCOUNT(<columnName>) : Model View in Power BI Service showing tables, relationships, and the properties panel for editing a DirectQuery semantic model. How it works and when to use it Instead of scanning every single unique value, APPROXIMATEDISTINCTCOUNT calculates a highly accurate estimate of unique values with a standard error rate of ~1.6%. In return, you get faster query execution times. Best for high-cardinality columns: Use it on columns with millions of unique values (such as transaction IDs, user IDs, or timestamps) where an approximate result can reduce the resources required to calculate distinct values. Keep standard DISTINCTCOUNT for low-cardinality data: Stick to exact counts for smaller attributes like Country, Category, or Status, where standard calculation is already fast, or for financial metrics where absolute precision is required. Swap APPROXIMATEDISTINCTCOUNT into your heaviest measures today and let us know how much speed you gain on your models! Learn more in the APPROXIMATEDISTINCTCOUNT documentation. Accelerate text searches in your semantic models with String Indexing (Preview) String Indexing for Power BI semantic models is coming soon! If your reports rely heavily on text fields, such as product names, customer comments, or long descriptions, you’ve likely faced slow performance when users search or filter on large semantic models. String Indexing is designed to improve text-search performance in supported semantic models. Why String Indexing? Common text operations like DAX functions (SEARCH(), CONTAINSSTRING()) and advanced text slicers in reports traditionally scan data row-by-row. As datasets grow, these scans slow down query times. String Indexing builds specialized indexes so the engine can locate matching text more efficiently, which can improve report responsiveness for both Import and Direct Lake semantic models. Indexing modes You can configure String Indexing via model metadata to fit your workload needs: Auto Mode: Automatically builds the index on the first query execution for a qualifying column. The index does not persist in storage; it remains in memory only while the column is loaded and will be rebuilt on subsequent queries if evicted. Ideal for smaller models. Full Mode: Builds and persists the index during scheduled data refreshes. While refresh times and model size may slightly increase, users enjoy consistently fast query performance right out of the box. Get started String Indexing requires a semantic model running at 1707 compatibility level. During this initial preview phase, indexing can be configured through TMDL on the web or XMLA metadata. Desktop support and a dedicated UI experience within Power BI are planned for a future release to simplify setup. Check out the String Indexing documentation for setting up instructions, prerequisites, and guidance on choosing the right indexing mode for your models. We look forward to seeing how this feature helps make text-heavy reporting experiences faster and more responsive! Introducing Full-Text Search in Power BI Semantic Models (Preview) Full-Text Indexing for Power BI semantic models is coming soon! While traditional string searches look for exact character matches, Full-Text Indexing enables a more intelligent search experience based on the meaning of words and natural language concepts. This capability powers two new DAX functions, TEXTCONTAINS() and TEXTSIMILARITY(), making it easier than ever to analyze large volumes of textual data directly in your semantic models. Why Full-Text Indexing? Business data increasingly contains rich text content such as customer feedback, support tickets, product descriptions, incident summaries, and knowledge articles. Searching this data using traditional string matching often requires exact matches and can miss relevant results due to differences in spelling, word forms, or phrasing. Full-Text Indexing builds a specialized search index at the column level, allowing semantic models to understand words rather than just character sequences. This enables advanced search experiences such as: Finding related words through linguistic analysis (for example, run, running, and runs) Matching singular and plural variations automatically Ignoring common stop words such as "the" or "and" Supporting phrase-based searches Tolerating minor spelling mistakes through fuzzy matching Enabling semantic similarity search scenarios Getting Started FTS Indexing requires a semantic model running at 1708 compatibility level. During this initial preview phase, indexing can be configured through TMDL on the web or XMLA metadata. Desktop support and a dedicated UI experience within Power BI are planned for a future release to simplify setup. New DAX functions Full-Text Indexing is required for two new DAX functions: TEXTCONTAINS() Returns TRUE when a text value matches a search expression using full-text search semantics rather than simple substring matching. It supports multiple search modes, including keyword matching, phrase matching, and fuzzy matching for typo tolerance TextContains(<WithinTextColumn>, <SearchText>, [MatchMode]) Example: "Show me all reviews that mention spa." The review either matches or it doesn't. TEXTSIMILARITY() Returns a relevance score indicating how well the text in <WithinTextColumn> matches <SearchText>. It enables similarity-based text comparisons, helping identify records that are semantically related even when they do not contain the exact same words. TextSimilarity(<WithinTextColumn>, <SearchText> [, <MatchMode>]) Example: "Show me the 10 reviews most relevant to 'good breakfast'." Reviews mentioning both terms prominently rank higher than reviews that only partially match. Learn more about these two new DAX functions (TEXTCONTAINS, TEXTSIMILARITY) in our documentation. Full-Text Indexing is supported for both Import and Direct Lake models, with Full mode recommended (during Preview) for the best out-of-the-box performance and user experience. Refer to the Full Text Indexing documentation to learn more about prerequisites, configuration options, and setup instructions. Data connectivity New Power Query editor (Preview) Since May of this year, the modern Get Data experience has been available in preview inside Power BI Desktop; the feedback we've gathered from that rollout has directly shaped what comes next. Your reports of friction points, missing capabilities, and rough edges between the legacy and modern interfaces went straight into the backlog, and this month that work pays off: the full modern Power Query Editor experience moves into preview. It's the same trusted engine, wrapped in a completely refreshed editing surface — and we're still closing the remaining gaps with the legacy UI as we go. Let's explore six key reasons to enable and try this feature. Modern Get Data - The same connector browsing and search experience you already know from Fabric Dataflow Gen2 — now in Desktop. Searchable, categorized, and designed to make connectors easier to find and navigate than the legacy dialog. Try it: Connect to a new data source and browse the OneLake catalog. To learn more, refer to the Data sources in Power BI Desktop documentation. Dark theme, end to end - No more jarring light-mode panes breaking your flow. The legacy editor only partially supported dark theme. The modern editor applies it consistently across the preview grid, dialogs, and other parts of the editing surface. Folding visibility - Stop guessing whether your query folds. Step folding indicators mark each step as folding or not, and the new query plan shows exactly how the engine intends to evaluate your query — and where folding breaks down. Try it: Open the query plan on a query with several steps and find where folding stops. To learn more, refer to the Understanding Query Evaluation and Query Folding in Power Query documentation. Diagram view - See how your queries relate to each other visually, instead of reverse-engineering it from names. A gamechanger for files you've inherited or models with long reference/merge chains. Try it: Open a file with referenced queries and trace a merge visually. To learn more, refer to the Diagram view documentation. New capabilities, now on Desktop - Features that used to live only on the web are now here: rank column, cluster values, schema view, query script view, plus upgrades to transforms you already use daily. Try it: Add a rank column or cluster values on a messy text column. To learn more, refer to the Rank column and Use Schema View documentation. Export a Power Query template - Capture your solution at a point in time and take it with you. Export a template from Desktop and import it straight into a Dataflow Gen2 — queries, steps, and structure intact. Try it: Export a template from a multi-query file and import it into a Dataflow Gen2 to compare. Figure: Screenshot of the Export template experience in the Power Query editor. To learn more, refer to the Power Query template documentation. Ready to try it? Enabling the modern Power Query experience takes just a few seconds — no restart required: Open Power BI Desktop. Locate: File > Options and settings > Options. Under Preview features, check New Power Query experience. Open (or reopen) the Power Query Editor — you're now in the modern experience. Once you've had a chance to explore this new user interface and its experiences, we want to hear from you. Share your thoughts on the new Power Query experience in the Fabric Community — what's working, what's missing, and what would make it a compelling alternative from the legacy editor. Every comment helps shape what ships next. Microsoft Outlook Mail connector (Preview) We're introducing the new Microsoft Outlook Mail connector (Preview) for Power BI Desktop. Built on the Microsoft Graph API, it lets you read your mailbox data — folders, messages, and attachments — using an organizational account. This is the first in a set of new connectors we'll be releasing as a modern alternative to the Exchange Online connector. The initial preview is scoped to Mail in Power BI Desktop. Additional connectors for Calendar Events, Contacts, and Tasks are on the roadmap, along with Excel and Power BI service / Fabric Dataflows Gen2 support. Scheduled refresh isn't supported yet — this applies to both the Power BI service and refreshes routed through the on-premises data gateway. To try it, enable the Microsoft Outlook Mail preview feature under Options in Power BI Desktop, then open Get Data → Online Services → Microsoft Outlook Mail and sign in with your organizational account. To learn more, refer to the Microsoft Outlook Mail connector documentation. More flexible Data Privacy Firewall query patterns in Power BI Desktop (Preview) Power BI Desktop now allows Data Privacy Firewall partitions that reference other partitions also access data sources when the privacy levels of the involved data sources are compatible. Introduced in the July 2026 release and enabled by default, this preview setting aligns Power BI Desktop with Power Query Online, gateways, and the Power BI service. This change supports common query patterns in which one query returns a value that another query uses to build a web request, SQL statement, file path, or other data source request. These patterns can now run without refactoring queries or duplicating logic solely to satisfy the previous partition restriction. The Data Privacy Firewall remains active. Power Query continues to evaluate the privacy levels of the involved data sources before combining data, helping authors use more flexible query designs while preserving privacy protections. To learn more, refer to the Allow data privacy firewall partitions that reference other partitions to also access data sources documentation. Mobile Mobile page indicator (Generally Available) Know immediately which report pages are mobile-ready, without clicking through them. Each page that has a mobile layout shows an icon on its page tab in the footer, so you can spot your mobile coverage instantly. Pages without a mobile layout stay unmarked, making it easy to see what's left to optimize. The icon is coming soon to both Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service. In Power BI Desktop, it appears in both desktop layout view and mobile layout view, so you can track mobile coverage right where you work. In the Power BI service, it appears in mobile layout view. Page tabs marked with an icon to show which pages have a mobile layout. To learn how to build mobile-optimized reports, refer to the Mobile-optimized Power BI reports overview documentation. Contact details in Info drawer (Generally Available) We’re making it easier to connect with the right people from the Power BI Mobile app. You can now find contact details in the Info drawer for reports, apps, and dashboards, and email the relevant contact directly from your phone. To learn more about Power BI in mobile, refer to the What Are the Power BI Mobile Apps? documentation. Developers and APIs Power BI Projects (PBIP) (Generally Available) Since entering preview in 2023, PBIP has changed how developers build and manage Power BI content. It stores report and semantic model definitions as human-readable text files, turning a Power BI solution into a codebase. Developers can search these files, track changes in Git, review diffs in pull requests, automate updates with scripts and pipelines, and use AI agents to work with models and reports. Changes remain visible and reversible, which makes team development easier and safer. Recent improvements have made the workflow more practical. These include opening a project directly in Visual Studio Code and detecting external file changes in Power BI Desktop. New underlying formats capabilities: Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) for semantic models. Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) for reports. PBIR is now the default report format for PBIX and PBIP files. New reports use it from the start. When you edit a report that uses the legacy format, Power BI tools automatically convert it to PBIR. To learn more, refer to the Power BI Projects documentation. New Purge Data option for Fabric APIs The new Purge Data option for Fabric APIs gives developers and administrators greater control over programmatic semantic model deployments. This capability allows users to explicitly approve deployments that may require removing existing data, helping unblock scenarios such as schema or data type changes that previously failed validation checks. Designed with both safety and automation in mind, purgeData keeps data protection safeguards enabled by default while giving developers the flexibility they need to manage complex deployment scenarios at scale. To learn more, refer to the Purge Data documentation. Other Data updated and sensitivity fields of Power BI report in Microsoft Teams preview card (Coming Soon) Power BI report previews in Microsoft Teams will soon surface the report's last refresh date and sensitivity label. These additional signals will help users quickly assess the freshness, relevance, and classification of a report before opening it. To learn how Power BI content is displayed in Microsoft Teams, refer to the Link preview cards in Microsoft Teams chats and channels documentation. Artifact info header for Power BI tabs in Microsoft Teams (Generally Available) Power BI content in Microsoft Teams tabs now includes the artifact info header, giving users the context they need without leaving their flow of work. Available for reports, apps, organizational apps, dashboards, and scorecards, the header brings key artifact information and actions together in one place. The new header displays the artifact name and sensitivity label and provides an entry point to artifact metadata. You can open the artifact in the Power BI personal app in Teams, open it in a browser, and refresh the tab. Tab owners can control their experience with the new Show info header setting on the tab settings page. The setting is 'on’ by default and can be turned off when a more compact tab experience is preferred. To learn how to add Power BI content as a tab in Microsoft Teams, refer to the Embed Power BI reports in Microsoft Teams documentation. Third-party custom visuals graphomate matrix The graphomate chartrix is a brand-new charting visual, and it offers various improvements over graphomate charts. First and probably most obvious is the new interactive user interface which enables users to define most elements of the chart layout directly on the visual. To keep this interface effective and uncluttered it focuses on the most important parameters of your chart. Users can now create combination charts which were simply not possible before. There are also new chart types like the variance waterfall, which automatically renders from one measure and two dimensions. Of course, the graphomate chartrix is IBCS® certified. With the latest release an XFL editor has been introduced, which helps you write scripts to format the chartrix far beyond the possibilities of the regular option set. XFL scripts also provide a way to conditionally format the visualization, dynamically changing properties in relation to the actual data. This new visual is provided free of charge to existing customers of the graphomate charts. All development efforts will be focused on making the graphomate chartrix the best IBCS® charting visual there is. Video Link: graphomate chartrix for Microsoft Power BI AppSource Link: graphomate chartrix Sample Report Link Drill Down Bubble PRO by ZoomCharts Drill Down Bubble PRO is a Power BI visual designed for exploring relationships, trends, and outliers across multiple dimensions of data. It adds richer exploration, selection, and analytical capabilities directly inside the visual. Key features include: Multi-level drill down to explore data hierarchies from a high-level overview to detailed insights. Pan and zoom controls to navigate dense datasets and focus on specific clusters or individual data points. Area and lasso selection to quickly isolate groups of bubbles and use selections for interactive analysis and filtering. Dynamic regression lines that recalculate as the displayed data changes, making trends and relationships easier to identify. Line and area thresholds to highlight targets, ranges, exceptions, or other important business benchmarks. Area shading to visually group and compare selected segments of data. 200+ formatting settings to tailor the chart to different reporting and branding needs. Figure: Drill Down Bubble PRO demonstrates multi-level drill down, panning, and zoom controls for exploring data from high-level patterns to detailed points. These capabilities make Drill Down Bubble PRO especially useful for customer segmentation, sales analysis, portfolio analysis, performance monitoring, and other scenarios where users need to actively explore patterns rather than simply display them. Get on Markeplace Commenting in view mode: introducing Zebra BI Tables+ & Charts+ It's month-end. A regional manager opens the report, spots a variance in their region, and knows exactly why it happened. But the report isn't theirs to edit, so the explanation ends up where it always does: a screenshot pasted into PowerPoint, emailed around, detached from the number that prompted it. That's the collaboration gap. Your report shows what happened; the why and the what next leave the report and get lost. Meet Zebra BI Tables+ and Charts+: two new visuals that keep everything existing Zebra BI Tables and Charts offer and add a built-in collaboration layer. Report viewers can add comments directly on a data point, in view mode, with no Power BI edit access. Each comment is anchored to the exact figure and stored in your own SharePoint file. Zebra BI stores nothing. ting files from SharePoint, and collaborate directly in view mode. So instead of screenshotting insights into PowerPoint or maintaining a custom workaround, the whole team explains and decides right on the report. Instead of slides or emails, the next steps can be defined directly on the spot. Stop losing good decisions to a missing context. Start making them on the report. Try Zebra BI Tables+ and Charts+ free for 14 days on AppSource. Network Graph by Powerviz The Powerviz Network Graph is a visual representation of Nodes and the relationships or connections between them. Its primary purpose is to illustrate how different entities are related or interact with one another. Key Features Line Options: Customise node links with different styles and colors. Node Shape: Choose from various shapes, icons, or upload your own. Labels: Display categories, values, and percentage labels. Data Colors: Access 30+ color palettes, including color-blind-safe options. Fill Patterns: Highlight nodes with patterns or upload your own. Conditional Formatting: Highlight outliers based on measures or category rules. Clusters: Group related nodes to reveal patterns. Relationships: Analyze node connections at a glance. Animation: Add pop-ups and highlight effects. Import/Export: Save and reuse themes easily. Toolbars: Gain advanced control over the graph. Other features included are Sorting, Ranking, Lasso / Reverse Lasso, Grid View and more. Business Use Cases Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Optimization, Social Network Analysis (SNA). Resources Try Network Graph visual for FREE from AppSource Check out all features of the visual Step-by-step instructions YouTube Video Learn more about visuals Follow Powerviz on LinkedIn Hierarchical Bar Chart New, exciting changes were made to Hierarchical Bar Chart. Bubble Matrix for stacks - The visual now provides the option to show stacks as bubbles below the bars. lues into bar-and-bubble matrix layouts for clearer comparison of category totals and component contributions. Display Stacks as Clustered Columns - From the format pane settings, you can choose to display stacks as clustered column chart. Filter using legends - You can click on a stack legend to filter out other stacks. On mouse hover relevant stack gets highlighted. Stack ribbons and %age of total - You can now choose to connect stacks with ribbon and show percentage of total for each stack. Resources Check out the Hierarchical Bar Chart Update YouTube video. Download the visual from APPSOURCE Download a sample pbix file For more information refer to Hierarchical Bar Chart or contact us. That’s a wrap! The European Microsoft Fabric + SQL Community Conference is just getting started, and there's never been a more exciting time to be part of the Power BI community. We hope these updates help you discover new capabilities, streamline your workflows, and get even more value from your data. Be sure to explore the links throughout this post for deeper technical guidance and follow along with the latest announcements and sessions from Barcelona.
Power BI September 2025 Feature Summary
The Power BI September 2025 Feature Summary introduces updates for users and coincides with FabCon Vienna! This release introduces several key enhancements, including, updates to Copilot and AI capabilities such as the standalone Copilot default-on experience, and important changes to default visuals like the Bing Maps Visual icon. Dive into the details to discover how these innovations can elevate your Power BI experience. Contents Events and Announcements Get certified in Microsoft Fabric Power BI DataViz World Championships – happening live at FabCon Vienna! Copilot and AI Standalone Copilot to default-on Auto-selection of Copilot workspaces Save Explorations to pro workspaces Find Power BI reports in M365 Copilot search improvements Prep data for AI coming soon to the Power BI service Reporting Enhanced DAX Time Intelligence (Preview) Performance analyzer available when editing a report in the web Translytical Task Flows are now enabled by default in Power BI Modeling Editing semantic models in the Power BI Service (Generally Available) Live editing Direct Lake semantic models with Power BI Desktop (Generally Available) TMDL view (Generally Available) Download PBIX of XMLA altered semantic models Fabric Notebooks for Power BI: Best Practices Analyzer and Memory Analyzer (Generally Available) Direct Lake on OneLake + import in web modeling (Preview) Direct Lake on OneLake + import in Desktop DAX User Defined Functions (Preview) Refresh data or schema options in Power BI Desktop Power BI content shared in Teams now opens in a separate window Mobile NFC tag support in Power BI Mobile (Generally Available) Other New Tenant Setting for Set alert button visibility Visualizations ADWISE Advanced Column v 2.0 Zebra BI Tables: Calculated Reports in One Click and Brand Images Word Cloud by Powerviz Drill Down Combo Bar PRO by ZoomCharts CAGR Arrows Now in Zebra BI Charts Closing Version number: v: 2.147.909.0 Date published: 09/15/2025 Events and Announcements Get certified in Microsoft Fabric Join the thousands of other Fabric users who’ve achieved over 50,000 certifications collectively for the Fabric Analytics Engineers and Fabric Data Engineers roles. To celebrate FabCon Vienna, we are offering the entire Fabric community a 50% discount on exams DP-600, DP-700, DP-900, and PL-300. Request your voucher. Power BI DataViz World Championships – happening live at FabCon Vienna! Four finalists are taking the stage at FabCon to compete for the title of world champion! FabCon Vienna Power BI Dataviz World Championships – and the winner is... Congratulations to Paulo Grijó! Read more about the finals and all four finalists. Copilot and AI Standalone Copilot to default-on The standalone Copilot experience for Power BI, also known as chat with your data—is a full-screen, chat-based AI experience that finds data and answers questions about any report, semantic model, or Fabric data agent you have access to. The standalone Copilot experience will be enabled by default for all tenants where Copilot has already been turned on. If you would like to opt out, If your tenant admin has enabled this setting: Users can use Copilot and other features powered by Azure OpenAI—this setting will be automatically enabled in September: Users can access a standalone, cross-item Power BI Copilot experience (preview). We understand that some organizations are still preparing their data for AI and configuring what Copilot can access. You can opt out, here’s how: Turn the setting on in the admin portal, then immediately turn it off. This action tells us that you prefer to enable the standalone Copilot later, and we’ll skip the automatic default-on for your tenant. Auto-selection of Copilot workspaces If you don’t have access to a Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC), you can still use the standalone Copilot experience. However, you’ll need to manually select a Copilot workspace for billing and usage tracking. This step has caused confusion for many business users, as workspace names, eligibility rules, and billing details are often unfamiliar. Beginning in late September, Copilot will automatically assign a workspace to each user, allowing them to access their environment without additional steps. You will still have full control to change their selection at any time, but the automatic selection will clear a roadblock and make it easier to start getting insights from Copilot. How auto-selection works Smart distribution: We generate a partially randomized list of workspaces, weighted toward those with more available capacity. This helps balance usage and avoids overloading any single capacity. Eligibility check: We’ll pick go down that list and pick a workspace tied to a capacity that meets Copilot requirements (in short, F2 or higher, in a supported region, enabled for use with Copilot). Persistence: Once selected, the workspace stays set across sessions. Fallbacks: If the workspace is later disabled for Copilot, we’ll automatically reassign a new one and alert the user. If an FCC becomes available, it will always override the auto-selected workspace. User control: A dismissible notification will let users know which workspace was chosen, with a direct option to change it. mber_2025_Feature_Summary You can also update it anytime via More > Manage workspace in the standalone Copilot experience. Why this matters This update clears friction for business users who want to use Copilot but don’t know (or need to know) the intricacies of capacities and workspace settings. By auto-selecting a workspace, we help them get straight to the insights they care about—while still giving admins and power users the flexibility to make changes as needed. Save Explorations to pro workspaces Previously, you could only save Explorations to Premium workspaces. Now, you can also save them for Pro workspaces as well. This makes it easier to save and share insights gained during your exploration. Find Power BI reports in M365 In the July 2025 Power BI Feature Summary, we announced the extension of the Power BI and M365 integration to further improve Power BI item discovery and search relevancy in M365 Copilot experiences & Office search. This expansion will empower consumers to locate their Power BI reports and data directly from M365 environments where they already work. Since then, we’ve made significant progress; users can now find Power BI reports by searching for a variety of report content in both Microsoft 365 Search and Copilot. Now, searching for a report title, description, chart title, or other contextual details within the report will display relevant Power BI items in M365, simplifying the process of finding reporting resources for daily data-driven decisions. Search for Power BI items in the M365 Copilot Search Search for Power BI items in the M365 Copilot Chat To learn more about how to share Power BI data with M365 for your organization, refer to the Share data with your Microsoft 365 services documentation. Copilot search improvements Copilot report descriptions make it easier to identify which report can answer your question without needing to open each one for verification. When the report author hasn’t added an item description, Copilot will provide a descriptive caption in Copilot search lists. Search prefers items that have been Prepped for AI. When content creators update the Prepped for AI setting to indicate that a semantic model is ready for use with Copilot, search is now boosting that prepped content (both the model, and all reports that use it). Content that’s ready for Copilot will be preferred in Copilot search over equally relevant Certified & Promoted content. In addition, we’ve sped up the delay in applying the prepped status of the model to the report from 24 hours to under 1 hour (but usually just a few minutes) in most cases. Hints for item types and workspaces, Copilot search returns results that are semantically like your question’s topic, which can be helpful when you don’t quite remember the report’s name. But often we remember other information that could help narrow the search. Copilot can now recognize the key concepts of workspaces and item types, which you can use to guide search. If you’re looking for a semantic model you created ages ago to model effective advertising spend, you might ask: ‘Find semantic models with fields about campaigns, ROI, and impressions'. Or, if you want to prefer content in a particular location, you might say: ‘Summarize quarterly sales, from the workspace East Coast Only’. This won’t act as a strict filter, so if you have a workspace called ‘Excluding East Coast’, you might see results from that workspace because the workspace names are similar. Copilot search responses will now prefer to surface just reports and data agents when the user doesn’t specify. Copilot can still use the report’s semantic model to answer the user's question, but in this way, we’re focusing on items that users are more likely to recognize. Updates to support filter pass-through, you may have already noticed updates in how verified answers show up in our search lists. These changes are purposeful and support Copilot in honoring filter context. For example, when a question about tourism on O’ahu is submitted, it is useful if search indicates that someone has already verified the answer to a similar inquiry. If information is needed for a different island, and that selection is available as a filter in a commonly used report, Copilot can be directed to use that specific report. In the following example, the verified answer is used as a starting point but filtered to directly answer my original question. You can find the filters applied to the visualization. When you use Copilot to search, you'll now see recommendations for what to do next, such as summarizing the report or providing an overview of the key metrics. Learn more about these features and how Copilot search works in the Find content with Power BI Copilot search documentation. Prep data for AI coming soon to the Power BI service In the coming weeks you will be able to prepare your data for AI directly in the Power BI service. Making it easier to keep your semantic models Copilot-ready without switching tools — and it unlocks additional model types you can prepare, including Direct Lake models and more. With prep data for AI features available in the service, you will be able to: Select a Copilot schema Set up and manage Verified Answers Add AI instructions To use these features: In the Power BI service, select the semantic model you want to prep. On the model page, select the Prep data for AI button in the ribbon. When you’re ready, don’t forget to update the model setting so users in your organization can start using Copilot with confidence. Reporting Enhanced DAX Time Intelligence (Preview) A brand new, calendar-based approach to time intelligence in Power BI has arrived! With this update, you can now define custom calendars—such as fiscal years or 4-5-4 retail calendars—directly in your data model. This gives you precise control over how your data maps over time, enabling more accurate and flexible analysis. What’s more, it allows you to do week-based calculations as well! Basic example using a Gregorian calendar How to use calendars to perform a total month-to-date calculation on a Gregorian calendar: To get started, simply turn on the 'Enhanced DAX Time Intelligence' feature in preview settings. Select Calendar options from the context menu on your date table. Create a calendar by associating columns in your date table into categories. Example: The Gregorian Calendar below maps the Year, Quarter, Month, Month of Year and Date categories to primary and associated columns (Columns can be named as desired). Perform calculations based on your calendar. Example: If you have a calendar called ‘Gregorian Calendar’ defined in your model, you can use TOTALMTD to calculate a month-to-date total sales value based on that: Sales MTD = TOTALMTD ( [Total Sales], 'Gregorian Calendar' ) In addition to expanding existing functions with support for calendars, we have also added brand new functions that allow you to do week-based calculations as well, such as TOTALWTD, PREVIOUSWEEK and more. Show your result in a visual. Example: This chart shows the Total Sales and Sales MTD value we calculated previously. Working with fiscal calendars Many calendars, particularly fiscal calendars, are shifted Gregorian calendars, in which the year does not being on January 1 st , but for example on July 1 st . Microsoft is an example of a company that uses a shifted fiscal calendar. In this case, a date table would include columns for the fiscal periods, such as fiscal year, fiscal quarter and fiscal month: Now, you can define a Fiscal Calendar: endar You can use the calendar in our calculations, for example, this calculates the SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR value using the Fiscal Calendar: Sales Same Period Last Fiscal Year = CALCULATE ( [Total Sales], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR( 'Fiscal Calendar' ) ) This can then be visualized as follows: Week-based calculations As mentioned, you can now also perform week-based calculations, including 454 and other patterns. After making sure your data table contains week information, associate the relevant categories in your calendar as done below for a 454 calendar: Next, create your DAX calculation, for example, a week-to-date calculation can be made using TOTALWTD: Sales WTD 454 = TOTALWTD ( [Total Sales], 'RETAIL-454' ) The column chart shows the actual and the week-to-date sales value based on our RETAIL-454 calendar. There is much more to learn about this feature as it allows for a lot of advanced scenarios. Learn more about this preview in our time intelligence documentation and try it out in your next report and let us know what you think! Performance analyzer available when editing a report in the web Performance analyzer is now available in the web report editing experience and provide information on visual load times. Load times update as you interact with the report. Copy the DAX query from any visual to troubleshoot even further. Previously accessible in Power BI Desktop, this feature now allows users to observe report performance after publication. To learn more, refer to the Use Performance Analyzer to examine report element performance in Power BI Desktop documentation. Translytical Task Flows are now enabled by default in Power BI As a refresher, Translytical task flows, released in May 2025, marked a major evolution in Power BI by allowing users to act on insights instantly without leaving the report. Powered by Fabric User data functions, Translytical task flows allow users to automate tasks such as updating records, dynamic notifications, and even triggering workflows across other systems. To learn more about Translytical task flows, refer to the Understand translytical task flows documentation. Modeling Editing semantic models in the Power BI Service (Generally Available) This milestone unlocks end-to-end Power BI authoring directly in the browser, bringing core modeling parity between the web and Desktop experiences. Yes, that means Mac users can now model in Power BI, no Desktop required! What’s Supported? Create from scratch in the web - You can create net new import semantic models and reports directly in the browser! Navigate to the ‘Create’ page and select ‘Get data’. Choose from over 100 supported connectors to bring in your data, shape it with Power Query, build your semantic model, and design your report. Edit existing semantic models - The Power BI service now offers advanced modeling capabilities, including: Adding new import tables to your model Transforming import tables using the full Power Query editor Refreshing schema and data Managing relationships Writing and editing DAX measures, calculated columns, calculated tables, and calculation groups Editing properties in the properties pane Defining and assigning row-level security roles This release enables core modeling features in both Power BI Desktop and the web, allowing you to build and manage models easily from anywhere. To learn more, refer to the Edit semantic models in the Power BI service documentation, or the Deep Dive into Editing Semantic Models in the Power BI Service (Generally Available) blog post. Live editing Direct Lake semantic models with Power BI Desktop (Generally Available) This capability allows you to use the familiar Power BI Desktop interface to edit Direct Lake semantic models. All processing occurs in your Fabric workspace, directly against OneLake data, using the Power BI Analysis Services engine instead of your local machine. With live edit, every change you make, whether creating new measures, adding calculation groups, defining relationships, running DAX queries, and more, is applied directly to the semantic model in Fabric, ensuring a seamless, scalable modeling experience. Getting started is easy You can begin in Power BI Desktop or from the web: Start from Desktop Open the ‘OneLake data hub’ in Power BI Desktop. Select your Direct Lake semantic model. From the ‘Connect’ button drop-down, select ‘Edit’. Start from the web: In the web experience, select ‘Edit in Desktop’ for the Direct Lake semantic model you have opened. This will launch Power BI Desktop with the semantic model ready for editing. To learn more, refer to the Direct Lake in Power BI Desktop documentation, or the blog post. TMDL view (Generally Available) TMDL view introduces a modern code-first editing experience for Power BI semantic models using the Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL). A user-oriented modeling language designed to enhance transparency, governance, and efficiency in the development of semantic models. With TMDL view, you can easily make batch updates using simple find-and-replace operations or leverage your preferred generative AI tool to create or modify TMDL code at scale. General availability introduces several notable enhancements: Full code highlighting including DAX and M (Power Query) Execution status in the script tabs For more information about TMDL view and full list of capabilities, please refer to our Work with TMDL view in Power BI Desktop (preview) documentation. Download PBIX of XMLA altered semantic models A key goal of the TMDL view work was to ensure Power BI Desktop can reliably handle any semantic model configuration. If the model is valid in Analysis Services in a Fabric workspace, it can be opened and edited in Power BI Desktop without crashing. Semantic model metadata not accessible through the user interface - such as multiple table partitions - can still be edited using TMDL view. Previously, users could use the XMLA endpoint with external tools to make semantic model changes - such as creating multiple partitions - that were supported by Fabric but not by Power BI Desktop. This mismatch often caused Power BI Desktop to crash, which is why downloads were blocked for XMLA altered semantic models. Now that TMDL view is generally available, we’ve removed this limitation. You can now download PBIX files for semantic models modified through the XMLA endpoint, and open and edit them in Power BI Desktop. This update does not mean that all semantic models are now downloadable as PBIX files. For example, semantic models with incremental refresh partitions are still not supported for download, this will be addressed in a future update. For more details on PBIX download limitations, please refer to our Limitations when downloading a report .pbix file documentation. This feature is currently rolling out and may not be fully available in all regions or for all users yet. We appreciate your patience as we complete the deployment over the coming weeks. To learn more, refer to the Open and edit any semantic model with Power BI tools blog post. Fabric Notebooks for Power BI: Best Practices Analyzer and Memory Analyzer (Generally Available) These one-click experiences make it easy to use Fabric Notebooks and Semantic Link to analyze your semantic models directly on the web. Best Practice Analyzer evaluates models using more than 60 rules across five categories: performance, DAX expressions, error prevention, maintenance, and formatting. It provides guidance on design and performance based on these criteria. Memory Analyzer provides detailed memory and storage statistics for tables, columns, hierarchies, partitions, and relationships, helping you identify optimization opportunities. We would like to give a special shoutout to the Power BI community members whose contributions laid the foundation for these tools: Daniel Otykier – creator of Best Practice Analyzer in Tabular Editor Marco Russo – developer of VertiPaq Analyzer Michael Kovalsky – builder of semantic link labs powering these notebooks Explore the Power BI Community Notebooks Gallery to discover and share notebooks that enhance data analysis and reporting with the Power BI Community. Learn more about using notebooks with your Power BI semantic models including details on this feature and its limitations in the Use notebooks with a semantic model documentation. Direct Lake on OneLake + import in web modeling (Preview) Semantic models edited in web modeling now have full flexibility of both Direct Lake on OneLake and import table storage modes. Open a semantic model with either Direct Lake tables or import tables and add in additional tables from either storage mode. Choose Get Data to add in import tables from any of the 100s of connectors supported. Choose OneLake catalog and add in Direct Lake tables from any of the Fabric data sources you have access to, including Lakehouses, Warehouses, Mirrored databases, Mirrored Azure Databricks catalogs, and SQL databases in Fabric. Summary Once in import storage mode you can transform the table further in Power Query and add in calculated columns to get your reporting where it needs to be. Hierarchies added to import tables also can be used in Analyze in Excel. To learn more, refer to the Direct Lake overview documentation. Direct Lake on OneLake + import in Desktop Power BI Desktop can also live edit semantic models with both Direct Lake and import tables. Edit relationships, add measures, and adjust column and table properties right in Power BI Desktop. To learn more, refer to the Direct Lake overview documentation. DAX User Defined Functions (Preview) Power BI has long supported custom functions in Power Query, however now DAX User Defined Functions (UDFs) provide similar capabilities. DAX UDFs allow you to define custom functions with parameters, just like you would define functions or methods in programming. Instead of copy-pasting chunks of logic across multiple measures, you can now write your logic once and reuse it everywhere. Complex problems can be encapsulated by multiple reusable functions. Functions can even refer to other functions! This way, your logic becomes easier to write, understand, maintain and debug. Whether you are working on complex models or just want cleaner, more maintainable code, DAX UDFs are for you. Up to this point, the reusability of DAX logic was limited to calculation groups. DAX UDFs, however, unlike calculation groups, can be parameterized. Getting started with DAX UDFs To get started, simply turn on the ‘DAX User Defined Functions’ feature in the preview settings. You can define DAX UDFs in multiple ways, including the DAX Query View and TMDL view. Defining and using a function Defining a function is straightforward as we have introduced a new FUNCTION keyword. The general structure for defining a function is: /// [function description] FUNCTION <FunctionName> = ( [parameter name] : [parameter type] ) => <body> For example, here is a DAX query that defines and evaluates an extremely simple function that applies a 10% tax to an amount. DEFINE /// AddTax returns the amount including tax FUNCTION AddTax = (amount) => amount * 1.1 EVALUATE { AddTax(11) } // Return 11 After adding the function to the model, you can then call the function from other places where you can use DAX, such as measures: Parameters Just like built-in functions, DAX UDFs can take zero or more parameters. You can also provide the type of the parameter, so your functions are much more resilient. For example, to identify that our AddTax function expects a numerical value, we could write. DEFINE /// AddTax returns the amount including tax FUNCTION AddTax = (amount: numeric) => amount * 1.1 Parameters can not only take scalar values but also accept tables and even expressions. Type checking To make DAX and TMDL/TMSL more consistent, we have introduced a set of new functions to do type checking and updated the DATATABLE, CONVERT and EXTERNALMEASURE functions have been updated to work with all synonyms as well. For example, we now have added ISSTRING, which is an alternative to, ISTEXT and ISNUMERIC which is a complement to ISNUMBER. A complete list is available in our documentation. Managing DAX UDFs Functions are shown in the model explorer: In DAX Query View, we even added quick queries, so it’s even easier to define and evaluate existing functions or write a brand new one. The possibilities are endless DAX UDFs open a whole new spectrum of options, and this blog cannot do it justice. We encourage you to enable the preview today and try it out for yourself. Read more in the Power BI DAX User Data Functions documentation. Please let us know what you think. We are looking forward to seeing all the creative uses of UDFs! Refresh data or schema options in Power BI Desktop When you select ‘Refresh’ in Power BI Desktop, it always performs a schema sync first, followed by a data refresh. While this behavior is convenient in most cases, there are scenarios where you may want to refresh the data without updating the model schema, even if the data source has changed its schema. For example, in Direct Lake semantic models, the underlying Lakehouse table might have changed (e.g., a new column added). You may want the latest data but prefer not to bring new columns into the model. With this month's update, you now have more control over the refresh operation. You can choose to: Sync schema only – Updates the semantic model to reflect the data source structure (e.g., column type changes or new columns). Refresh data only – Loads fresh data while preserving the current schema in your semantic model. These options are also available when you refresh tables individually in the data pane: This added flexibility helps you manage your models refresh operations more intentionally, based on your specific needs. For more information about Power BI Desktop refresh, refer to the Data refresh in Power BI documentation. Power BI content shared in Teams now opens in a separate window In this month's update, when you open a Power BI item which was shared with you in Teams chat or channel, it now opens in separate window—so your chat and other Teams apps stay exactly where you left them. Previously, opening an item from a Power BI preview card would replace your Teams chat, making multitasking difficult. With this update, items shared in a chat open in a separate window, while your original chat remains visible in a collapsible side panel. You are now able to access data, maintain ongoing conversations, and utilize additional Teams applications simultaneously. Figure - A user selects 'Open' on a Power BI report preview card within a Teams chat. The report launches in a separate Teams window, while the original chat remains accessible in a collapsible side pane. To learn more about Power BI preview cards in Teams, refer to the Link preview cards in Microsoft Teams chats and channels documentation. Mobile NFC tag support in Power BI Mobile (Generally Available) Imagine being able to access your important data just by tapping your device on a small tag. That’s the power of NFC (Near Field Communication) tags. NFC Tag Support is now generally available in the Power BI Mobile app on supported devices! This feature allows you to register and read Power BI items such as reports, scorecards, dashboards, or even a set of items like an app or workspace on NFC tags directly from the app. With NFC you can create a seamless connection between your data and the physical world. For example, a retail manager could quickly access inventory data by tapping their phone on an NFC tag placed on a storage shelf. This feature is especially useful for frontline workers who need quick access to data while managing retail floors, inventory, or manufacturing processes. Getting started is easy: open the Power BI Mobile app, navigate to the item you want to register, press the Register to NFC button in the 3 dots menu, and follow the prompts to link it to an NFC tag. Once you’ve registered your desired item to the tag, anyone with the Power BI Mobile app can get to the item simply by tapping the tag with their device, whether the app is open or not. If the user doesn’t have permission to access the item, they’ll be taken to the request access flow. NFC tags are affordable, flexible, durable, and reliable, and can easily be reused. To learn more about NFC support in Power BI mobile, refer to the Connect data to physical locations with NFC tags documentation. Other New Tenant Setting for Set alert button visibility A new tenant setting, all Power BI users can see ‘Set alert’ button to create Fabric Activator alerts, is rolling out this week. This setting will give admins more control over which users can view the Set alert button, which allows users to create Fabric Activator alerts on their visuals, sending real-time notifications based on predefined data conditions. When enabled, all Power BI users will see the ‘Set alert’ button in reports. When the setting is turned off, the button will only be visible to users with tenant-level Fabric access, which was the group of users who could see the button prior to this change. Regardless of whether the setting is turned on or off, only users with permission to create Fabric items can set up Fabric Activator alerts. The benefit of turning this setting on is that it allows users for whom Fabric was enabled for only specific capacities to also set alerts, unlocking the power of real-time alerting for more Power BI users. This setting is currently disabled and will be turned on by default the week of October 13th. Visualizations ADWISE Advanced Column v 2.0 Advanced Column is easy to use column chart for comparing one or more values with clearly interpretable difference lines. It is best suited for comparison of values between time periods, categories or quantities. This visual presents the following features: Chart types - stacked, clustered and nested/chimney charts in one visual. Difference lines – lines to clearly show difference above compared columns with values in specific shapes, all configurable (percentage/absolute difference, colors, borders, rounded corners, lines share starts/ends). Top N selection Built in – Easily display key data by selecting the Top N columns or Top N segments within each column + the "rest" part of the data. Total Column - It is not necessary to display separate KPIs for totals, as the Total column is already included in the chart. User controls – Enable/disable viewer change of Top selections (how many to show, highest/lowest) and Total Column calculation. Enable and Add Icons – Icons make charts easier to read by visually representing column categories, you can add icons directly in the visual using the built-in icon picker. And other formatting - Axis Y break, thousand and decimal separator, interaction with other visuals, empty data screen, animations, gradient background, shadows, transparency. Try from AppSource. Zebra BI Tables: Calculated Reports in One Click and Brand Images The latest update to Zebra BI Tables introduces two powerful features that streamline report building and enhance data storytelling: row calculations from the data model and brand images in rows. Check out the demo video: Zebra BI May 2025 Update: One Click P&L and Brand Logos in Zebra BI Tables With the new zero-click reporting functionality, users can now define calculation logic (such as invert, result, skip) directly in the Power BI data model. Simply add a column to your dataset, define the logic with symbols (“=” (Result), “/” (Skip), “-” (Invert)), and with a single drag and drop add it to Zebra BI Tables. The column values will automatically be applied as calculations on the visual, eliminating the need for additional manual setup. It makes the creation of reports like P&Ls, balance sheets, inventory tracking, SaaS metrics, or sales dashboards dramatically faster and more accurate. Zebra BI Tables now also supports adding brand images instead of row labels. Especially valuable for consumer goods and retail companies, this feature makes reports more intuitive and engaging. By instantly recognizing brand logos, end users grasp insights faster and spend less time searching for context. These updates contribute to: Massive time savings. Error reduction. Standardized reporting across teams. Simplify your reporting with Zebra BI Tables and share your feedback. Word Cloud by Powerviz The new Word Cloud by Powerviz is available, an advanced visual which empowers you to create some of the most high-quality and creative word art in the Power BI. Key Features: Word Styling: Make your word clouds pop with personalized text styles. It offers font styling, direction & text editing features. Color Options: Choose from 30+ color palettes, including color-blind safe options. Shapes: Create eye-catching word clouds by selecting or uploading images. Exclude: Easily remove unnecessary words and symbols from the text to produce a clean and focused word cloud. Ranking: Filter out Top/Bottom N Words. Conditional Formatting: Easily spot words with dynamic rules. Lasso/Reverse Lasso: Select or deselect multiple words with ease. Grid View: Switch to an interactive table with sort, filter, and search features. Show Condition: Dynamically show or hide the visual based on conditions. Ideal for marketing, education, market research, and presentations—use it for sentiment analysis, SEO keywords, brainstorming, surveys, and engaging communication. Try Word Cloud visual for FREE from AppSource Check out all features of the visual: Demo_file Step-by-step instructions: Documentation YouTube Video: Video_Link Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/ Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U Drill Down Combo Bar PRO by ZoomCharts What makes Drill Down Combo Bar PRO the best custom visual for visualizing categorical data? It’s all about the drill downs – in Combo Bar PRO, you can create a hierarchy of up to nine category fields, and users can easily drill down by clicking directly on data. Deeper, more focused insights, but only when the user needs them. The visual is designed to provide top-notch user experience: the slick and intuitive on-chart interactions, the smooth animations, the seamless cross-filtering with other visuals, and full touch support all make Combo Bar PRO a crucial addition to your next report. And the best part? Combo Bar PRO supports up to 25 series, and each series can be visualized as bars, lines or areas. With a wide variety of customization options, you can create the perfect chart for your use case. We also recently published a guide on how to create different types of stacked charts with Combo & Combo Bar PRO, including stacked bar, stacked & clustered bar, bar & line, nested bar chart and more. For a more details, refer to our blog - Power BI Stacked Column Charts: A Full Guide! Get Drill Down Combo Bar PRO CAGR Arrows Now in Zebra BI Charts Compare multi-year trends across business units, products, or regions — instantly. The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is a critical metric for visualizing growth trends in financial analysis, strategic planning, and performance comparison. Now available in Zebra BI Charts for Power BI, CAGR arrows make it easier than ever to communicate multi-year trends directly within your reports. They are especially useful in dashboards that track long-term results, helping users highlight growth patterns and shifts over time. When used in small multiples, CAGR arrows allow immediate comparison of performance across regions, product lines, or business units — all while maintaining a shared Y-axis for IBCS-compliant reporting. Each CAGR label includes a color-coded action dot — green for growth, red for negative — with the size scaled to reflect magnitude, offering an intuitive visual cue for trend strength. To simplify reporting even further, Zebra BI Charts automatically calculates the CAGR based on your underlying data. CAGR provides a smoothed view of performance over time, helping teams refine growth targets, align KPIs, and deliver executive ready insights with clarity and impact. To learn more, refer to Introducing CAGR arrows in Zebra BI Charts. Closing This concludes this month’s update. We hope the information provided in this update is useful. If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review. As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next. We are looking forward to hearing from you!Power BI November 2025 Feature Summary
The November 2025 Power BI feature update brings several important announcements and enhancements across the platform. Key highlights include the deprecation of R and Python visuals in the Embed for your customers solution, significant updates to Copilot and AI capabilities—such as the standalone Copilot in Power BI mobile apps (Preview) and improvements to Verified Answers—and new options for reporting, modeling, and data connectivity. Users will also notice advancements in visualizations, with features like automatically expanding matrix columns and a generally available Card visual, as well as expanded support for Spark and Impala connectors and enhancements to image visuals and the OneLake Catalog. This summary provides an overview of these impactful changes to help you leverage the latest innovations in Power BI. Contents Events and Announcements Fabric Data Days is on now! FabCon is back from March 16-20, 2026, in Atlanta, GA Copilot and AI Ask anything, anywhere with Standalone Copilot in Power BI mobile apps (Preview) Updates to the standalone Copilot in Power BI Improvements to Verified Answers Remote Power BI Model Context Protocol Server for chat with your Data (Preview) Reporting Automatically expand matrix columns to fill available space Card visual (Generally Available) Enhancing Image visuals with styling, states, and more OneLake Catalog now supports user data functions for Translytical task flows (Preview) App Copilot (Preview) Modeling Power BI Modeling MCP Server (Preview) Semantic Model Version History (Generally Available) TMDL Visual Studio Code Extension (Generally Available) Data connectivity Spark and Impala Connectors (Generally Available) Visualizations Activity Gauge by Powerviz Decomposition Tree – All Expanding Dynamic chart legends in Zebra BI Charts Drill Down Bubble PRO by ZoomCharts Power BI Theme Generator Power Gantt Chart by Nova Silva Turn any image into data insights with Synoptic Panel by OKVIZ Announcing deprecation of R and Python visuals in Embed for your customers solution https://youtu.be/pRFeQWzUhn0 Events and Announcements Fabric Data Days is on now! Take your Power BI skills to the next level with live learning sessions, QuickViz challenges, discount vouchers for exam PL-300 and DP-600, and community connection. See what’s happening this week. FabCon is back from March 16-20, 2026, in Atlanta, GA Join us for the ultimate Power BI, Microsoft Fabric SQL, Real-Time Intelligence, AI, and Databases community-led event. The third annual FabCon Americas will feature sessions from your favorite Microsoft and community speakers, keynotes, more opportunities to Ask the Experts for 1:1 support, an engaging community lounge with opportunities to network and connect with your peers, a dedicated partner pre-day, a packed expo hall, Power Hour, Data Viz World Championship, and a can’t-miss attendee party at the Georgia Aquarium. Register with code FABCOMM to save $200. Copilot and AI Ask anything, anywhere with Standalone Copilot in Power BI mobile apps (Preview) In the coming app release, we are enabling a new standalone Copilot experience straight from your mobile homepage. A complete chat experience that allows you to ask any question about your data and get instance insights from Copilot, anytime, anywhere. This experience will be available in the app stores in the upcoming weeks. To start chatting with your data, use the new Copilot button on your home page. This will open a chat experience where you can type or dictate (IOS only) your question and Copilot will take it from there. When you ask about a metric or a KPI, most chances that Copilot will generate a visual for you in addition to answering your question with text. Tap on the visual to open a pane and interact with the generated visual. Tap on the citation or reference to learn what content Copilot used for grounding its answer. You can also open the report from there as well. If you want to share insight discovered in the chat with others, select the ‘Share’ button from the visual pane, or the copy from the chat. The iOS apps (iPhone and iPad) also support dictation – so you can use voice interaction to ask Copilot questions. Use the mic icon in the chat box and Copilot will start listening, waiting for your questions. With this new standalone Copilot experience, you can now easily get quick answers and stay on top of things by chatting with your data directly from your mobile. Updates to the standalone Copilot in Power BI The standalone Copilot in Power BI, also known as ‘chat with your data’, is now even easier to use. Previously, Copilot asked users to choose from a list of possible data sources before answering questions. Now, it handles that step automatically: if it finds a strong match, it selects it in the background and goes straight to the answer. When more context is needed, Copilot will ask simple clarifying questions to find the right source. Although the additional reasoning may require a few more seconds, obtaining an accurate response from a reliable source justifies the brief wait. Additionally, in response to search questions like ‘Find reports about sales’, you’ll now see a much simpler text-based list of items. New entry points right from the home page By late November, you’ll be able to access Copilot right on your home page, making it easier than ever to find what you’re looking for or ask ad hoc questions about your data! Simply type your question and hit enter. If you preferred the old home page, no problem. Switch back using the layout drop-down. New suggested prompts for recently opened items - Copilot now offers helpful prompt suggestions related to recently opened items to help users get started. Improved experience attaching items to your question - Want to add a report, or other items, to your question? Items are now sorted by recency and easily filtered by item type in a slick new design that aligns with other Copilot experiences across Microsoft. Experiment with all the new updates and let us know what you think! Improvements to the Report Copilot We’ve upgraded the Report Copilot experience in Power BI, making it easier than ever to create, edit, and refine beautiful, data-rich reports with the help of AI. With this update, Copilot in Power BI not only helps you create entire report pages in seconds but now also gives you more control, flexibility, and visual intelligence than ever before. The new Report Copilot experience is available now in the Power BI service and Power BI Desktop. Smarter, More Capable Visual Creation The new Copilot understands your data and intent more deeply than ever. Just tell it what you want to create, and watch your ideas come to life instantly. Better visual recommendations: Copilot now selects the most appropriate visuals for your data automatically. Expanded Visual Library: Copilot supports a wider range of visuals, giving you more options to present insights into exactly how you envision them. Improved context awareness: When you describe what you want to see, Copilot now understands more nuanced instructions, producing more accurate and insightful results. To learn more about creating and modifying reports with Copilot, refer to the Create reports in the Power BI service with Copilot documentation. Improvements to Verified Answers This update enhances how verified answers inherit the state of your visual, expands filtering flexibility, and delivers more reliable results. What’s New? Verified answers now inherit and reflect the entire visual state: Previously, verified answers only captured filter states active at the time of creation. With this update, they now inherit the entire visual state, including slicers. This change directly addresses one of the most common pieces of feedback we received. Report slicers impacting the visual are being inherited and shown in the verified answer. In addition to slicers, we will support additional visual states: Slicer selections Field parameter choices Cross filters and cross highlights Drill-through filters Expanded Filtering Capabilities for Authors: There is now more flexibility when configuring verified answers. The limit for predefined filter permutations has increased from 3 to 10, enabling more complex and nuanced configurations. From a consumption perspective, we see that most prompt requests naturally use between one and three filters. ‘Show total sales for the region 1 in Q1’. ‘What is the usage of Product 1 in Country 1 during Month 1’. ‘Show average satisfaction scores by City 1 and segment 1’. Still, some business questions require deeper combinations of filters, and this expanded limit ensures verified answers can handle even the most detailed reporting scenarios. Improved Filtering Reliability: What are more filters, if they aren’t applied consistently? We’ve made substantial improvements under the hood to how we match user prompts in Copilot to verified answers and the appropriate filters. Verified Answers now interpret and apply filters more accurately, reducing mismatches between what users ask and what’s displayed, and ensuring filters are included when they should be. New card visual support: We have enabled the highly requested new card visual that you can now set as verified answers, the new card visual and Azure maps will be supported in Verified Answers creation and consumption. Why it Matters: These updates make verified answers feel native to your Copilot consumption experiences, seamlessly adapting to slicers, filters, interactions, and drill-through actions that users have come to expect from their visuals. Consumers will get answers that truly reflect the context of their analysis. The result, faster, more accurate insights, and a smoother path from question to confidence, and better grounding for the rest of your Copilot experience to learn from. For more info on how these updates work, refer to the Prepare Your Data for AI - Verified Answers documentation. Remote Power BI Model Context Protocol Server for chat with your Data (Preview) Available soon, the remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Power BI provides agents and MCP clients with tools to enable you to chat with your data, remotely, all authenticated with Microsoft Entra ID. This means you’ll be able to create powerful, custom agents on top of data that lives in your semantic models. The server has three tools that give your agents the ability to reason over your data, and respond to a user’s prompts: Get Semantic Model Schema: This tool provides the agent with the structure of the semantic model. Generate Query: This tool uses Copilot in Power BI to generate a DAX query based on the user’s input and best practices. The agent can then iterate on this query if it chooses or simply proceeds with the provided query. Execute Query: This tool gives the agent a powerful mechanism to query the semantic model to respond to any question a user asks. These tools can be implemented by any application that hosts an MCP client, such as Visual Studio Code. Other, non-Microsoft MCP clients can be supported with Service Principal authentication, backed by Azure Entra ID. The remote MCP Server for Power BI enables you to easily build the next generation of agents on top of the data your organization has already invested so heavily in. For more information on the remote MCP server for Power BI, for more information, refer to the documentation. Reporting Automatically expand matrix columns to fill available space Last month, tables got the Grow to fit option expanding columns to fill the available space. This month, we are enabling the same option on the matrix visual. As a reminder: with the Grow to fit option, any extra space in the visual is evenly distributed across existing columns when the total column width is smaller than the visual container, which eliminates the need to do manual resizing to fill the gaps. If your matrix isn’t using the full visual width, you can manually resize columns or use the new ‘Grow to fit’ option. For example, this matrix doesn’t fully utilize the available space: Navigate to the format pane under Column headers > Options, toggle Auto-size width to ‘On’, and set ‘Resize behavior’ to ‘Grow to fit’. Instantly, your matrix expands to make full use of the available space. The additional available space will be distributed across the columns: In last month’s release we also had an overenthusiastic horizontal scrollbar when using this option. This has now been corrected. The horizontal scrollbar should not show unless there isn’t enough space to fit the content. Learn more about Grow to fit in the table and matrix documentation. Card visual (Generally Available) The new Card visual brings a modern and visually engaging way to highlight key metrics in your reports, now with full support for hero images and a consistent formatting control experience across visuals for an intuitive experience. Whether you’re highlighting a product, showcasing a team, or featuring a brand logo, the new hero image feature empowers you to create visually rich reports going far beyond simple data points. The Card visual also introduces a dynamic collage layout, letting you highlight one section while the other two share the remaining space. Try adding the new Card visual to your next report and experience the difference for yourself. For more details and step-by-step instructions, check out the official documentation at Create a (new) card visual in Power BI documentation. Enhancing Image visuals with styling, states, and more We’re excited to introduce enhancements to the Image visual, bringing it closer to the level of interactivity and design flexibility you’ve come to expect. Create more engaging experiences by customizing image visuals based on user interaction states such as default, hover, and pressed states of images. Alongside state customization, we’ve added formatting options to give you full control over the look and feel of your image visuals. Such as background, border, and shape. These enhancements make it easier than ever to integrate images seamlessly into your report layout. We’ve also expanded the sources, fit and effects section, with more options for image source, including upload, URL, or from a data field. You no longer need to delete the visual to update its image. With the latest update, you can easily change the image source or swap the image itself, making edits faster and more flexible. We hope these updates to the Image visual inspire you to get creative with your report designs. Whether adding a splash of branding, building intuitive navigation, or simply making your reports more engaging, the new features give you the flexibility to do it all. To learn more about the image visual, visit our documentation: Create an Image Visual in Power BI. OneLake Catalog now supports user data functions for Translytical task flows (Preview) The Fabric user data function selection experience for Translytical task flows has been improved. You can now use the OneLake catalog to discover and select the user data function that you want your action button to invoke. With the OneLake Catalog you can: Browse all available User data functions in one place. Search by keyword for quick access. View details like owner, location and sensitivity label Filter by My Functions or Endorsed in your org for confidence and governance. This new experience is available when selecting the function for Data function actions. Select a button, open the format pane, enable Action, and under Data function select the fx button. Learn more about Translytical task flows in Power BI and how Fabric user data functions can take your report beyond just showing data at Understand translytical task flows. App Copilot (Preview) Your app users now can chat with your curated data within the context of an app. An app-scoped Copilot means users can search for reports within an app, ask questions, and receive answers based on the reports in that app. App Copilot is a separate complement to report-scoped Copilot already available on each report viewed in an app. To learn more, refer to the Power BI app Copilot: AI scoped to the curated content in an app (Preview) blog post. Modeling Power BI Modeling MCP Server (Preview) The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that enables AI agents to securely connect with tools and services. The Power BI Modeling MCP Server brings Power BI semantic modeling capabilities to your AI agents through a local MCP server. This allows developers and AI applications to interact with Power BI models in entirely new ways, from using natural language to execute modeling changes to autonomous AI agentic development workflows. Capabilities Build and modify semantic models with natural language: Create or update tables, columns, measures, relationships and much more simply by describing what you need. Perform bulk modeling operations at scale: Rename, refactor, translate, or document hundreds of model objects in seconds. Apply modeling best practices: Easily evaluate and implement modeling best practices. Leverage agentic workflows: Work with Power BI Project files and TMDL code, enabling AI agents to autonomously plan and execute complex modeling tasks. Query and validate DAX expressions: Run DAX queries or validate measures directly through AI-driven workflows. Start by installing the Power BI Modeling MCP Server Visual Studio Code extension to enable Power BI semantic modeling capabilities in GitHub Copilot. Whether you’re using GitHub Copilot or another AI-powered assistant, the Power BI Modeling MCP Server unlocks a new era of intelligent, automated, and high-efficiency semantic model development. For additional information and to provide feedback, refer to Power BI Modeling MCP on GitHub. Semantic Model Version History (Generally Available) With version history, you can confidently make changes to your semantic models—whether you’re editing in the web or live editing Direct Lake semantic models in Desktop—knowing you can restore earlier versions and recover from critical mistakes. Versions are automatically captured in an Office-like history pane for your live edited semantic models, making it easy to select and restore any previous version. Power BI captures up to five versions for each semantic model that supports version history. Versions are saved automatically when you: Open a semantic model in Editing mode on the web or open a Direct Lake model for live editing in Desktop. Publish or upload a .pbix file. Restore a previous version. You can also manually save a version (with an optional description) from the File menu while editing on the web. Learn more about this capability including limitations in the Use semantic model version history (preview) documentation. TMDL Visual Studio Code Extension (Generally Available) This update brings DAX semantic highlighting support within TMDL documents alongside other enhanced authoring features like Power Query semantic highlighting, breadcrumb navigation, code actions, code formatting, localization, and numerous bug fixes. You can find more details about this latest release in the changelog. The TMDL extension is essential for anyone working with TMDL documents in Power BI Projects (PBIP). It brings modern code experiences to semantic modeling, enabling scalable development of semantic models with the efficiency, flexibility, and AI-powered workflows that today’s data teams expect. Get the TMDL Extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace to enhance your semantic modeling-as-code experience and accelerate your semantic model development today! Screenshot of VSCode Marketplace Feature Highlights DAX support: Improved readability of DAX code within TMDL documents including semantic highlighting, real-time diagnostics, and autocomplete. Power Query support: Autocomplete, diagnostics, syntax highlighting, hover and formatting. Localization: Hover descriptions and code action messages are now displayed in the user’s preferred language, aligning with Visual Studio Code language settings. Code actions: Quick fix and refactoring TMDL code such as duplicated lineage tag or misspelled property. Code navigation: Easily navigate TMDL document objects in a hierarchical view. Code format: Automatically organize TMDL code for enhanced readability and consistency. We value your input and encourage you to share it using vscode-tmdl GitHub repository. Data connectivity Spark and Impala Connectors (Generally Available) We’re thrilled to announce that Implementation 2.0 for the Spark and Impala Connectors is now generally available, powered by the open-source Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC) driver. This update delivers faster, more secure connectivity for Power BI Desktop, making it easier to analyze and visualize large datasets. How does this improve your Power BI experience? Performance boost: Reduced overhead with no serialization or copying. Security improvements: Memory safety and garbage collection aligned with SDL standards. Seamless integration: Works across Fabric experiences and Power BI Desktop for unified data access. Beginning November 2025, specify [Implementation="2.0"] in your connection settings to utilize these improvements: Spark: ApacheSpark.Tables("http://server.cloudapp.azure.com:10001/cliservice", 2, [BatchSize=null, HierarchicalNavigation=true, Implementation="2.0"]) Impala: Impala.Database("server.cloudapp.azure.com", [Implementation="2.0"]) For further details, please refer to the Spark Connector and Impala Connector documentation. Visualizations Activity Gauge by Powerviz The Activity Gauge is an advanced visual used to measure the progress against a set target or Goal for multiple categories. It is typically presented in the form of a radial bar chart/Gauge, displaying a range of values or percentages. This visual is commonly used for project management, performance tracking, and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Key Features: Gauge Customization: Shape, style, and add icons for a unique design. Targets: Choose from options or use a custom field to set a target. Data Colors: Offers 7 schemes and 30+ color palettes. Smart Labels: Add data and leaf labels that auto-adjust inside or outside the shape for better readability. Center Circle: Customize center circle with text, icons, measures, and images. Interactive Mouseover: Hover for Interactive Info Display. Fill Patterns: Highlight gauges with patterns or upload your own. Conditional Formatting – Create rules based on measure or category rules. Other features included are ranking, annotation, grid view, show condition, and accessibility support. Business Use Cases: Project Management: Track task progress for efficient project oversight. Financial Dashboard: Gain instant insights into key financial metrics. Try Activity Gauge for FREE from AppSource Check out all features of the visual: Demo file Step-by-step instructions: Documentation YouTube Video: Video Link Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/ Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U Decomposition Tree – All Expanding Decomposition tree All Expanding Visual now allows you to add a legend field. This creates additional column chart beside each node showing breakdown from another dimension. This is depicted in image below. The visual below analyzes the revenue of two largest consumer good companies Unilever and P&G by products. We add region field in the legends section to show additional breakdown of Revenue by Region. The data used is fictitious and used for analysis purposes only. The visual also allows you to add images to nodes. Check out the video on Decomposition Tree All Expanding - Power BI custom visual, demonstrating all the features of this custom visual. Download this visual from APPSOURCE Download demo file from APPSOURCE For more information visit https://www.excelnaccess.com/decomposition-tree/ or contact [email protected] Dynamic chart legends in Zebra BI Charts Which version of the plan am I looking at? - Finance teams ask this daily when switching between budgets, forecasts, and plans. Static chart labels in Power BI waste hours every week and lead to confusion, misinterpretation, and reporting errors. The new dynamic chart legends in Zebra BI Charts for Power BI remove that guesswork by automatically adapting chart legends to the selected filter or scenario, so you can always trust what you see. See the full update How it helps - In FP&A, Actuals are often compared against multiple baselines. Waterfall charts are ideal for this, but static legends stay fixed even when scenarios change. Real-world use cases Comparing forecast versions: Before, every scenario looked the same: ‘Plan’. Now, legends show AC 2024 vs Revised Forecast Q3, eliminating ambiguity. Year-over-year analysis: Previously, reports displayed AC [Year] regardless of selection. Now, legends update from AC 2024 vs PY 2023 to AC 2025 vs PY 2024. Regional reporting: Legends now reflect the active region: AC vs EMEA Budget or AC vs Americas Budget, without manual checks. Together with dynamic titles and dynamic column headers, Zebra BI delivers a fully responsive, accurate, and effortless reporting experience in Power BI. Explore Zebra BI for Power BI Drill Down Bubble PRO by ZoomCharts Say hello to the latest visual by ZoomCharts! With Bubble PRO, you can create visually impressive and user-friendly bubble charts that make complex data simple to explore. What sets Bubble PRO apart from other visuals is the user experience. UI interactions are made as intuitive as possible: freely pan the chart, pinch or scroll to zoom in, click on a marker to drill down, and quickly make single or bulk selections. Coupled with smooth UI animations, seamless cross-filtering and full touch support, you can design more interactive and insightful reports. Main features Drill Down: Create a multi-level hierarchy; and click to drill down. Data-driven Formatting: Apply custom marker colors, shapes, or images directly from data. Trendlines: Show a linear or polynomial regression line that dynamically recalculates whenever the chart changes. Thresholds: Display up to 4 reference lines or areas on each axis. Area Shading: Highlight up to 8 custom areas with rectangles or ellipses. We also have other news: you can now sign up to the free Developer License and use Bubble and 20+ other ZoomCharts visuals in Power BI Desktop for a year! Get Bubble PRO on AppSource Power BI Theme Generator In September 2023, our BIBB Report Theme Generator for Power BI was spotlighted on the Power BI blog. Since then, we've rebuilt and expanded it to help teams standardize look-and-feel, meet accessibility baselines, and export production-ready JSON themes in seconds. The generator streamlines brand color, typography, and visual style setup—making it easy for BI teams to deliver consistent, on-brand reports while reducing manual rework. What's new: a smarter color engine with contrast checks, gradients creation, AI powered themes creation, preset brand colors, apply theme through Fabric, select font, live preview on your own report, and advanced BI.ST mode for power users, while keeping the simplicity of one-click JSON export. Common use cases include (1) rolling out or updating corporate brand themes across workspaces, (2) accelerating new report builds with vetted defaults, and (3) improving report readability and accessibility with contrast-safe palettes. Learn more and see all features on our product page below. Links Find the simplest yet most powerful Power BI Theme Generator All features & documentation Power Gantt Chart by Nova Silva We’re thrilled to introduce one of the most requested features in Power Gantt: task dependencies! With our latest release, you can now add Finish-to-Start (FS) dependencies between tasks—visually represented as arrows connecting one task’s finish to another’s start. This powerful enhancement brings true project scheduling capability to Power BI. By visualizing dependencies, teams can better understand task sequences, identify bottlenecks, and manage timelines more effectively. Adding dependencies is simple—just define them in your dataset, and Power Gantt does the rest. Arrows will automatically appear on your Gantt chart, making relationships between tasks clear and actionable. Whether you’re managing product launches, construction schedules, or complex workflows, FS dependencies make your Power Gantt chart smarter, more dynamic, and easier to interpret. Start using dependencies today and take your project tracking to the next level! Try the Power Gantt Chart for FREE now on your own project data by downloading it from the AppSource. Questions or remarks? Visit us at: Power Gantt Chart for Power BI. Turn any image into data insights with Synoptic Panel by OKVIZ With Synoptic Panel, you can transform any SVG image into an interactive visual directly in your report. Perfect for floor plans, organizational charts, technical layouts, or geographical maps, it lets you integrate your data with images your audience already knows. A dynamic dashboard, where users can naturally explore insights by clicking on shapes and areas. This makes complex information easier to understand and more engaging to navigate. Key features include: Flexible image loading: use local files embedded in reports, remote URLs, or My Storage, our secure hosting service. Multi-level navigation: drill down into building floors or geographical regions, with automatic hierarchy creation when using remote configurations. Dynamic switching: change maps through slicers or bookmarks. Map Editor and Label Designer: fine-tune data binding, arrange and customize labels directly in the visual. Advanced coloring: apply conditional formatting and color rules to build heatmaps or highlight key areas. Map search: quickly locate maps or areas for faster access. Integrated security: safely host and distribute maps while keeping control of access. Full customization: adapt interactions, appearance, and data binding to your reporting needs. Explore real-world use cases and try Synoptic Panel for free! General Announcing deprecation of R and Python visuals in Embed for your customers solution We are announcing an important change for Power BI customers who use Embed for your customers with R or Python visuals. As part of our ongoing commitment to provide a secure, scalable, and robust analytics platform, we continually evaluate our feature set to ensure alignment with industry standards, customer needs, and platform performance. What’s Changing? Starting May 2026, Power BI will end support for the ability to embed reports and dashboards containing R or Python visuals using Power BI’s Embed for your customers solution (also known as app owns data) and Publish to web scenarios. Embed for your customers typically involves a custom app which manages authentication directly, and for which app users do not need Power BI licenses. This change does not impact customers leveraging secure embeddings to SharePoint, Website or Portal. Embed for your organization (also known as user owns data) scenarios are also not impacted. Timeline for Deprecation Announcement & Guidance: Effective immediately, customers are notified of the upcoming deprecation. Deprecation Date: Official support for embedding R and Python visuals in PaaS scenarios will end on 05/01/2026. Post-Deprecation: After this date, any embedded Power BI reports or dashboards containing R or Python visuals will still load, but the R or Python charts will display as blank. Reports without these visuals will continue to function as expected. Recommended Actions for Customers Review all embedded Power BI reports and dashboards to identify usage of R or Python visuals. Plan to update or redesign any affected reports using alternative Power BI visuals or DAX-based analytics. Consider leveraging Fabric Notebooks for more sophisticated or technical visualizations. Consult the Power BI & Fabric documentation for guidance on using alternative visuals effectively. Support and Resources We understand that this change may require updates to your existing solutions. Please reach out via the Power BI community forums or through your Microsoft account representative for personalized guidance. Closing This concludes this month’s update. We hope the information provided in this update is useful. If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review. As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next. We are looking forward to hearing from you!Power BI January 2026 Feature Summary
The January 2026 Power BI Feature Summary is packed with exciting news—there are fresh updates, important announcements, and some big changes, especially around upcoming events, feature retirements, and the latest in AI and Copilot advancements. Some of the standout features include new reporting tools, smarter data modeling options, enhanced resources for developers, broader global standards support and upgraded visualizations. With these improvements, Power BI is making analytics easier to use, helping you work more efficiently, and connecting all your tools even better than before. FabCon Atlanta is fast approaching! If you’re looking for more details, check out the Events & Announcements section. We hope you’ll join us! Contents Events & Announcements General Deprecation of Power BI Q&A SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer Web Part Support Discontinuation The Power BI application is accessible within Teams on Microsoft 365 Operated by 21Vianet Copilot and AI Attach reference to Copilot chat in the Power BI mobile app Updating Prepped for AI setting name to Approved for Copilot Standalone Copilot Access on Power BI Home Reporting Field parameters persist hierarchy level setting Format Pane Improvements Introducing Markers in Azure Maps Visual Modern Visual Tooltips (Generally Available) Column Sizing Update in Tables and Matrices Modeling Updates on Editing Semantic Models in the Power BI Service Chinese coded character set (GB18030-2022) support Developers + API’s Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) as Default Format Visualizations Funnel Chart by Powerviz Nebula by BI Samurai Events & Announcements Could you be the next Power BI Dataviz World Champion? There’s only one way to find out! By joining this global contest, you will have the opportunity to tackle three weekly challenges designed to stretch visualization skills and inspire innovation. Four finalists will be selected to compete for the title of world champion LIVE on stage at FabCon Atlanta. Learn more about how to enter and view the entries from the first week, happening now. Two months until FabCon – will we see you there? Join us for the ultimate Power BI, Microsoft Fabric SQL, Real-Time Intelligence, AI, and Databases community-led event from March 16-20, 2026, in Atlanta, GA. The third annual FabCon Americas will feature sessions from your favorite Microsoft and community speakers, keynotes, more opportunities to Ask the Experts for 1:1 support, an engaging community lounge with opportunities to network and connect with your peers, a dedicated partner pre-day, a packed expo hall, attendee favorites Power Hour and the Data Viz World Championships live finals, and a can’t-miss attendee party at the Georgia Aquarium. Register with code FABCOMM to save $200. General Deprecation of Power BI Q&A Q&A, our legacy natural language tool, will be deprecated in December 2026. Moving forward, use Power BI Copilot, which provides a more advanced and integrated solution for querying data with natural language. For more details and recommended alternatives, refer to the blog post on Deprecating Power BI Q&A. SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer Web Part Support Discontinuation Support for SSRS SharePoint Webpart, a component that allows you to embed on-prem paginated reports directly into SharePoint Server pages, will end on April 13, 2026. While the download will continue to be available, there will be no future updates for this component. For more information and recommended alternatives, refer to SSRS SharePoint Webpart documentation. The Power BI application is accessible within Teams on Microsoft 365 Operated by 21Vianet Users can acquire the Power BI app from the app store, or admins can centrally install it for them. Once added, users can view their Power BI content in Teams using the app, and pin Power BI items to chats or channels using Tabs. The following features are not supported in the Power BI app for Teams operated by 21Vianet environment: Power BI notifications in Microsoft Teams Power BI preview cards Please also refer to the service description of Power BI in 21Vianet: Power BI operated by 21Vianet in China. For installation instructions, please refer to: Add the Power BI app to Microsoft Teams. Copilot and AI Attach reference to Copilot chat in the Power BI mobile app In certain situations, you may know precisely which item you want Copilot to reference when generating its response. For those cases, we added the ability to attach a Report or Semantic model to Copilot chat as a grounded reference. To add a reference, tap the + icon or type / to search and select an item. The selected item appears in the chat Copilot uses it to ground its answers. Updating Prepped for AI setting name to Approved for Copilot In May 2025, we launched the capability to mark a model as prepped for AI. The name of this setting has been updated to “approved for Copilot”. Enabling this setting in a semantic model applies three main functionalities: The standalone Copilot agent doesn’t apply friction treatment to answers from that model. Authors can turn on the admin setting to only show approved items in the standalone Copilot experience. Models marked as approved for AI are boosted in the Copilot search experience. After you prepare your semantic model for AI and it's ready for consumption, you can mark your model Approved for Copilot by following these steps: Navigate to the Power BI service and find your semantic model. Select the Settings icon in the upper left corner. Expand the Approved Copilot section. Select the Approved Copilot box, and then select the Apply button. Standalone Copilot Access on Power BI Home Introducing a new Standalone Copilot entry point right on the Power BI Home page! This update brings Copilot closer to where you start your day, making it faster and easier to jump into AI‑powered insights. Why bring Copilot to Home? Placing Copilot directly on the Home page comes with several benefits: Faster insights - start asking questions the moment you land on Home. Easier discovery - new users see Copilot right away, encouraging them to use it as part of their natural workflow. When does it appear? The new entry point will show up automatically when: Standalone Copilot is enabled by your tenant admin. You have a valid Copilot capacity available. If either requirement isn’t met, don’t worry—you’ll continue to see the classic home experience. Prefer the classic view? You can always switch back to Recommended content using the picker at the top of the Home page. Toggle between the experiences your workflow needs. To learn more, visit: Standalone Copilot experience in Power BI (Preview). Reporting Field parameters persist hierarchy level setting In July 2025, field parameters became generally available, improving how matrices remember their expanded or collapsed state when the field parameter selection changes. Previously, many users found it confusing that a matrix would fully collapse whenever a field parameter value changed. Since the update, however, some users have shared that they preferred the earlier behavior because it felt more familiar and better suited for their workflows. To address this, we've added a new report-level setting that lets you restore the pre-July 2025 behavior for field parameters' expansion and collapse of hierarchy levels. By default, hierarchy levels remain persistent, but you can switch off this feature for a report using the Persist Hierarchy Level setting. The following examples are where to find it: In Power BI Desktop, navigate to Options and settings > Options > Current File > Report settings > Field Parameters > Persist hierarchy level. In Fabric, navigate to the report settings and find Persist hierarchy level under Field parameter options. To illustrate the difference, consider a matrix showing a field parameter called Product Group and a column called Year on the rows, displaying Total sales. The field parameter allows selection of Category, Class, Color, or any combination. In the following example, Category is selected, and the Categories are expanded, so you can see values broken down by Year: Now, when you change the field parameter from Category to Class, what happens depends on the Persist hierarchy level setting. If it's on, the matrix remains expanded, keeping the Year column visible; If it's off, the matrix collapses and displays only values for Class. The following table provides a comparison showing both behaviors based on whether the toggle is enabled or disabled. On Off We greatly value user feedback and continuously strive to improve the experience based on your input. The introduction of the persist hierarchy level setting is a direct result of listening to your suggestions, and we hope this new option enhances your reporting workflows and satisfaction. To learn more about the toggle and its impact, refer to the documentation on Let report readers use field parameters to change visuals. Format Pane Improvements With this version, we are releasing two improvements to Format Pane – Improved Color picker and reset to default experiences. Improved Color Picker Experience in Power BI Power BI report creators can customize colors in visuals with a theme color picker and custom color picker. We have added additional capabilities to this release. A clear indicator for the currently selected theme color. A simple way to reset colors to their default settings. A back button to return from custom colors to theme colors. This enhancement makes color customization more intuitive and efficient, helping you design reports with confidence and ease. Learn more about color formatting your visuals in the Tips and tricks for formatting color in reports documentation. Granular Reset Options in the Format Pane Format pane reset to default quickly let’s report creators undo customizations made to a visual. With this release, you can now reset default with finer control, for a single formatting group in the format pane. This is in addition to the existing functionality of reset to default for the whole visual and each section of the format pane. Reset this group settings to default within each section. Reset group settings without impacting the rest of the section. This enhancement delivers greater flexibility and usability, making it easier to fine-tune your report formatting with confidence. Learn more about formatting visuals in Power BI reports in the Get started formatting report visualizations documentation. Introducing Markers in Azure Maps Visual Azure Maps Visual for Power BI now supports a powerful new capability: Markers. Display your data points using customized icons, varying sizes, and advanced formatting features to improve narrative clarity in geospatial analysis. Replace basic shape markers with icons or custom images to represent deliveries, facilities, or assets using meaningful symbols like trucks, warehouses, or alerts. Scale marker sizes dynamically reflect the data measures such as shipment volume, population density, or sales. Customize colors and transparency for improved contrast and visibility on the map. Use distinct icons for each category, making reports easier to interpret. Learn more about the rich capabilities of Azure maps in Power BI reports in the Get started with Azure Maps Power BI visual documentation. Modern Visual Tooltips (Generally Available) Modern visual tooltips introduces enhanced usability, accessibility, and interactivity to your reports. These tooltips offer new capabilities in Power BI reports. Drill actions: The new Actions footer lets users drill down, drill up, or drill through data points directly from the tooltip—no need to use the right-click menu or visual header. This streamlines navigation and makes exploring data more intuitive. Styling: Tooltips automatically match your report’s theme colors, with options to further customize background, text, and icon colors in both the theme and Format pane. New reports get updated styling and the Actions footer by default. Existing reports keep their previous customizations, and you can enable or disable the Actions footer anytime via the Format pane. Modern visual tooltips in Power BI reports enhance usability and interactivity by allowing users to drill down, up, or through data directly from the tooltip Actions footer. These tooltips automatically adopt report theme colors, offer customization options, and provide updated styling by default for new reports, with flexibility to enable or disable the Actions footer as needed in the Format pane. To learn more, refer to the Create Visual Tooltips documentation. Column Sizing Update in Tables and Matrices In previous releases, table and matrix visuals automatically expanded their columns to fill the available space. This feature was introduced for tables in October 2025 and for matrices in November 2025. You gave us feedback that this often meant that even small fields stretched wider than necessary, creating layouts that felt inconsistent or wasted screen real estate. With this month’s release, that behavior has changed. In reports created from this release onward, columns are once again sized by default based on the content they contain. This makes tables and matrices more compact, easier to read, and better aligned with the actual data. You can still manually adjust column widths, or use Grow to Fit to expand columns when needed. But by default, visuals now prioritize content-driven sizing, giving you cleaner and more predictable layouts right out of the box. Here’s a before and after of the defaults: Before After We want to thank everyone who provided feedback. We greatly appreciate it! To learn more, refer to the documentation on adjusting column width in the table and matrix. Modeling Updates on Editing Semantic Models in the Power BI Service In September 2025, we announced the General Availability of editing semantic models in the Power BI Service. Models configured with incremental refresh are now supported, eliminating the prior restriction that prevented these models from being opened in the service. You can now seamlessly open and edit these models directly into the Power BI Service. However, note that semantic models with incremental refresh still cannot be downloaded as PBIX files, and you cannot use the Power Query editor when editing these models in the web experience. To learn more about editing semantic models in the service, refer to the Edit semantic models in the Power BI service documentation. Chinese coded character set (GB18030-2022) support China’s GB18030‑2022 standard is the latest update to the national character set requirements. It ensures compatibility with Unicode 11.0 and mandates support for additional characters, including minority scripts and emoji. For organizations operating in or with China, compliance is not optional. Rather, it’s a regulatory requirement. Starting with this release, Power BI can be configured to respect GB18030‑2022 encoding using the UnicodeCharacterBehavior setting. This setting is set to CodeUnits by default. To ensure your model is compatible with GB18030-2022, you’ll need to execute a specific XMLA command to set UnicodeCharacterBehavior to CodePoints: <Alter AllowCreate="true" ObjectExpansion="ObjectProperties" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine"> <Object> <DatabaseID>[your database id]</DatabaseID> </Object> <ObjectDefinition> <Database ....> <ID>[your model id]</ID> <Name>[your model name]</Name> <Language>[your language code]</Language> <ddl200:CompatibilityLevel>[your model compatibility level]</ddl200:CompatibilityLevel> <ddl200_200:StorageEngineUsed>[your storage engine]</ddl200_200:StorageEngineUsed> <UnicodeCharacterBehavior xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2025/engine/924/924">CodePoints</UnicodeCharacterBehavior> ... </Database> </ObjectDefinition> </Alter> Adding GB18030‑2022 support in Power BI isn’t just a technical tweak; it’s a compliance safeguard and a way to ensure your reports remain globally accessible. With the above XMLA command, you can align your semantic models with modern encoding standards and avoid downstream issues in multilingual environments. The UnicodeCharacterBehavior influences any DAX function that determines the length of a text string, which include FIND, LEFT, LEN, MID, REPLACE, RIGHT. These functions will exhibit different behaviors when working with text strings that contain Unicode characters. Let's look at how this works in practice. Here’s a measure that uses LEN to calculate the length of a text string: StringLength = LEN ( SELECTEDVALUE ( 'Table'[Column1] ) ) Here’s a before and after comparison of the result of StringLength on a column that contains Unicode characters: UnicodeCharacterBehavior = CodeUnits (default) UnicodeCharacterBehavior = CodePoints Notice how on the left each Unicode character has length 2, where on the right, each Unicode character has length 1. To learn more, refer to the documentation. Developers + API’s Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) as Default Format In November 2025, we announced PBIR will become the default Power BI Report Format for both PBIX and PBIP files (For PBIX users, switching to the PBIR report format does not impact their experience). PBIR will be activated by default in the Power BI service as part of a phased rollout, with full availability anticipated by the end of February. Beginning with the March release, PBIR will be set as the default format in Power BI Desktop. PBIR is currently in Preview with an opt-out option. Switching to PBIR is the last step before its General Availability, planned for Q3 2026. Any issues found now will be prioritized and addressed. Any issues identified during this period will be prioritized and addressed by our support team. We recommend preparing for this transition ahead of GA, as PBIR will be the only supported report format once it becomes generally available. Visualizations Funnel Chart by Powerviz The Funnel Chart by Powerviz is a stunning and informative visualization. It has 4 chart types in 1 visual, including a pyramid chart. The Power BI-certified visual is useful for tracking progress through different stages. It can also group data with legends for detailed insights. Key Features: Funnel Settings: Multiple display types are available, including vertical and horizontal orientation. Data Colors: Offers 7 schemes and 30+ color palettes. Labels: Select from multiple display styles with a custom label option included. Conversion Rate: In a single click measure the percentage of top and bottom stages to identify bottlenecks. Fill Patterns: Highlight stages with custom or pre-filled patterns. Conditional Formatting: Create rules based on measure or category rules. Totals: Display the total value at the top or bottom of the funnel chart. Ranking: Filter out Top/Bottom N stages. Annotation: Create multiple stories from one visual with comments for easy collaboration and clarity. Many other features included are grid view, show condition, and accessibility support. Business Use Cases: Sales Funnel Analysis, Marketing Campaigns, User Onboarding, & Website Traffic Try Funnel Chart for FREE from AppSource Check out all features of the visual: Demo_file Step-by-step instructions: Documentation YouTube Video: Video_Link Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/ Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U Nebula by BI Samurai Nebula by BI Samurai is a free certified Power BI custom visual for layout and background design, helping you create structured, consistent, and visually polished report pages—directly inside Power BI. Nebula simplifies report design by letting you build layouts that guide user attention, improve readability, and enhance storytelling—without using external design tools. Key Features: Customizable shapes – create precise layouts and background sections. Flexible color and transparency controls – match your report’s theme perfectly. Layer control – easily arrange and reorder elements. Custom default styles – set your own shape presets once and apply them easily across multiple pages. Lightweight and performance-optimized – designed to keep reports fast and responsive. Whether you're a designer or analyst, Nebula helps you transform plain Power BI pages into professional-looking, structured dashboards that communicate clearly and consistently. Microsoft Certified and available on AppSource, Nebula meets Microsoft’s standards for security, quality, and reliability. Learn more and explore design examples at bisamurai.com/nebula. Download Nebula from the AppSource: Nebula by BI Samurai. Check our Nebula demo video. Closing This concludes this month’s update. We hope the information provided in this update is useful. If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review. As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next. We look forward to hearing from you!Power BI April 2026 Feature Summary
Welcome to the April Power BI update! Power BI’s April 2026 update is here, bringing continued improvements across Copilot and AI, reporting, visuals, and modeling. This release includes more flexibility when working with layouts and visuals, expanded Copilot experiences—especially on mobile—and several preview features that continue to enhance performance and authoring workflows. You’ll also find important announcements and deprecation notices to keep in mind as you plan ahead. With FabCon fresh on our minds, now is a great time to dive into what’s new and see what’s coming next. Contents April Power BI Video Download Power BI Desktop Version number: v: 2.153.910.0 Date published: 21/4/2026 Events and Announcements The FabCon SQLCon live recap series starts April 14th Whether you were there or not, this is your fast track to staying in the loop. In this series, we break down keynotes and corenotes into clear insights and standout demos you can use right away. If it mattered at FabCon, you’ll find it here. Join us, get inspired, and stay connected to what’s happening across the Fabric community. Register now. Could you be the next Power BI Dataviz World Champion? During the recent world championships, one of the finalists confessed that they almost didn’t enter the contest. When we say, “You’ll never know unless you enter!” we really mean it! Don’t miss your chance to enter the next one. Let us know you are interested and we’ll let you know when it starts! General Deprecation of Old File Picker Experience in Power BI Desktop Starting in April, as part of the SU04 release, users will no longer be able to access the old file picker experience in Power BI Desktop. Last January, we announced an updated file picker experience that provides users with a more intuitive, straightforward way of navigating between files and folders. As of SU04, we are moving the updated experience out of preview and making it the default experience in Power BI Desktop. With this change, users will no longer be able to toggle between the old and updated experience. Note: No action is required from users as part of this deprecation; this is simply an informational announcement. Deprecating the Built-In Netezza ODBC Driver The IBM Netezza ODBC driver has been Generally Available for several weeks, and we are beginning the deprecation from the previously built-in ODBC driver to the newer version. Customers do not need to install the new connector; you may reuse your existing connector but will need to install the new ODBC driver. We encourage customers to do this as soon as possible to ensure a smooth transition. Image: IBM ODBC Netezza driver that will be deprecated from Fabric. Refer to the IBM Netezza ODBC documentation for more information. Copilot and AI Copilot in Power BI mobile now offers expanded features In-report Copilot in Power BI Mobile apps just got a major upgrade: you can now have a full, back-and-forth chat with your report, right from your phone or tablet. Instead of stopping at summaries and prebuilt prompts, in-report Copilot in the mobile app now supports open-ended questions and follow-up conversations, all grounded in the specific report you’re viewing. Ask about a metric or KPI, dig into what’s driving the numbers, and even get AI-generated visualizations to take your analysis further. Every answer includes citations back to the exact visuals Copilot used, so it’s easy to validate insights and keep exploring with confidence on the go. On iPhone and iPad, voice dictation makes it even faster to get hands-free answers while you’re prepping for a conversation or reviewing results away from your desk. Figure: Using in-report Copilot on the Power BI Mobile app to ask natural‑language questions and explore insights directly within a report. To learn more, refer to the documentation In-Report Copilot in Power BI Mobile Apps Reporting Modern visual defaults and customize theme improvements (Preview) This month's update adds a base theme switcher to the Customize current theme dialog (View ribbon > Themes). If your custom theme doesn't yet work with the new modern defaults, you can use the base theme switcher to revert to the previous base theme until you've had a chance to update your custom theme. You can also use the base theme switcher to update an existing report created with an older base theme to the latest base theme. Figure: Base theme switcher in Customize current theme lets you revert to the previous base theme or update an older report to the latest modern defaults. This update also includes common page sizes for each aspect ratio type in the Canvas settings > Size drop-down. Custom sizing remains available for any dimensions you need. Figure: Canvas settings with preset size options for 16:9 aspect ratio reports in Power BI Desktop. Table and matrix built-in styles have been fixed, with banded rows now enabled by default, as well as default +/- buttons for matrix visuals. Axis colors now also use the correct structural color, fixing issues with the Innovate and Orchid custom themes. Additionally, the built-in theme tiles have an updated look and the Reset to default tile is distinguished from the other built-in theme tiles. The behavior of the tile is not new; it simply clears any custom theme applied, leaving any formatting changes to individual visuals untouched until the visual itself is reset to default in the formatting pane. Figure: Built-in theme gallery in Power BI Desktop with the "Reset to default" option to remove any custom theme and update report to latest base theme. To get the latest version in an existing report, go to the Customize current theme dialog and select Update theme. Or choose the Reset to default tile in the Theme drop-down. Thank you for your feedback during the preview. You can continue to provide feedback and learn more about Visual defaults in Power BI reports. Fixed size layout for card, button slicer, and list slicer visuals Card, button slicer, and list slicer visuals now support a Fixed size option in the Layout section of the format pane. Instead of specifying how many items to display, you can define the exact pixel dimensions for each card, button, or list item. When the visual container isn't large enough to display all items at the specified size, scroll bars appear automatically. This update also renames Autogrid to Fit to space for clarity. When Fit to space is on, items grow or shrink to fill the visual container based on the items present. When Fit to space is off, the visual reserves space for the specified number of items, even when fewer items exist. For list slicer, the Fixed number of buttons option, equivalent to Autogrid off, is also renamed to Fit to space for consistency, especially when changing between visual types. Fixed size gives you precise control over each item's dimensions. As you resize the visual container, items maintain their specified height and width rather than scaling proportionally. This behavior is useful for creating consistent layouts across the report page or ensuring uniform button, list, or card sizes across multiple visuals. For list slicers specifically, fixed size provides a more natural experience when working with hierarchies. Expanding and collapsing hierarchy levels causes the number of visible items to change dramatically, and fixed-size items ensure consistent spacing as you navigate through the data. To use fixed size: Select your visual. Expand the Layout section in the Format pane (found under Multi-card layout or Multi-button layout and toggle Fixed size to On. For Vertical arrangement, set the Height value in pixels. For Horizontal arrangement, set the Width value in pixels. For Grid arrangement, set both Height and Width value in pixels. When Fixed size is enabled, Fit to space is disabled since dimensions are now controlled explicitly. Figure: List slicer with Fixed size enabled and Height set to 30 pixels. To learn more, refer to the documentation for card visuals, button slicers, and list slicers. Card visual: Category interactivity and formatting updates The card visual now provides clear visual feedback when you select a category header—the selected card appears highlighted while others dim, making it easy to see your current selection. When you add multiple data columns to the category field, the values concatenate in the category header for a cleaner display. You can also use Edit interactions to control which visuals the card filters, giving you more flexibility in how your report responds to selections. Additionally, top-level images display correctly when the image data is base64 encoded, so you can use images from your data without extra conversion steps. Figure: Card visual showing category header selection highlighting and dimming. For more information about the card visual, refer to Create a card visual in Power BI. Azure Maps visual: Map style picker sync When you change the map style using the in-visual style picker, the selected style now persists with the Format pane. Your styling choices stay consistent across both the style picker and the Format pane, giving you predictable behavior as you design your reports. Figure: Azure map updating the format pane style when the report creator adjusts the style on the visual itself. For more information about map styling options, refer to Get started with Azure Maps Power BI visual. Easily identify preview visuals in the Visualizations pane We appreciate your continued feedback on visuals and have finished addressing the concern that preview visuals weren’t always clearly notifying their preview status. Preview visuals now display (preview) after their names in the Visualizations pane, making it easier to identify which visuals are still in preview. Additionally, preview visuals now appear below the divider in the pane (alongside custom and unpinned visuals), clearly separating them from generally available visuals. These changes help you quickly understand when you’re working with a preview feature. Figure: Visualization pane when editing a report in Power BI Desktop showing preview visuals below the divider line and with (Preview) after their name. For more information about visuals, refer to Visualizations overview in Power BI. Narrative Visual Default Type Update The Narrative visual currently offers two modes: Copilot and Custom, giving report authors flexibility in how they generate and customize summaries. Previously, authors needed to explicitly choose which mode to use when creating the visual. We’ve recently improved this experience by introducing a smarter default. If a user has a Copilot license, the Narrative visual now opens in Copilot mode by default, making it quicker to get AI‑powered insights right away. We also increased the character limit to 10,000, enabling richer prompts and more detailed narratives. Authors can still easily toggle between Copilot and Custom modes at any time, ensuring full control over their storytelling workflow. This improved default is available now, and learn more with the Create Smart Narrative Summaries documentation. Modeling Direct Lake calculated columns and tables (Preview) Direct Lake storage mode accelerates time to insights by unlocking incredible performance directly against OneLake, without the need to manage costly, time-consuming refreshes for large volumes of data. Calculated columns (unmaterialized) on Direct Lake on OneLake tables are currently in deployment. Availability will follow completion of the service rollout; we will share updates as timing is finalized. Calculated tables referring to Direct Lake on OneLake columns. These features are particularly helpful when adding columns and creating tables upstream isn’t feasible, such as when data preparation in OneLake is owned by another team. Refer to the Create calculated columns in Power BI Desktop documentation for more information on calculated columns. Figure: Once available, users will be able to create calculated columns in both the Web and Desktop. User context aware calculated columns (Preview) We are introducing the ability to make calculated columns user-context aware by dynamically responding to DAX functions including UserCulture(), UserPrincipalName(), CustomData(). This enables new scenarios like data translations, and we’re excited to see the creative ways the community will use this! User-context-awareness can be set for calculated columns on Direct Lake on OneLake, Import and DirectQuery tables using the Expression Context property. Direct Lake on OneLake is in the process of deployment and will be available in the service in the next few weeks. Refer to the Create calculated columns in Power BI Desktop documentation for more information on user-context-aware calculated columns. Figure: A DAX expression in the formula bar to dynamically return a column with translated values based on the USERCULTURE() function. In the following example, a multi-lingual semantic model and report uses both data and metadata translations. By changing the language URL parameters to simulate a different browser locale, everything is displayed in Portuguese, including product names from the Product table. Figure: To use the feature in Power BI Desktop, you must enable the User-context-aware calculated columns preview feature switch. DAX user-defined functions (Preview) Alongside our ongoing preview of DAX user defined functions, we’ve enhanced the DAX NAMEOF function to give you much finer control over how object names are returned. NAMEOF now supports optional parameters that let you choose exactly which part of a table, column, measure, or calendar name to return, and control how that name is formatted for display. The new function signature is: NAMEOF ( <object> [, <component> [, <escaped>]] ) This makes it possible to programmatically reference just the table, just the column, or just the measure and improve usability for display scenarios, while keeping existing behavior unchanged for current models. Visualizations Date Picker by Powerviz The Powerviz Date Picker offers a modern calendar view, Presets, Pop-up mode, Smart Button Label, Custom Preset Title, and more, making it a must-have date slicer for Power BI reports. Its rich formatting options help with brand consistency and a seamless UI experience. Key Features Smart Button Label: Make the Pop-up button instantly understandable by showing the selected range, preset name, or both as per your choice. Custom Preset Title: Localize preset names to your users’ language. Fully customize what each preset displays across the report. First Day of the Week: Customize your calendar experience by choosing which day your week starts — perfect for global teams and regional preferences. Display Mode: Choose between Pop-up and Canvas modes. Presets: Many commonly used presets like Today, Last Week, YTD, MTD, or create your preset using field. Default Selection: Control the date period selected when the user refreshes or reopens the report. Filter Type: Choose between Range and Start/End types. Themes: 15+ pre-built themes with full customization. Holidays and Weekends: Customize holidays/weekends representation. Month Style: Select single- or double-month date slicer. Other features included are Multiple date ranges, Import/Export Themes and more. Try Date Picker visual for FREE from AppSource Check out all features of the visual Step-by-step instructions YouTube Video Learn more about visuals Follow Powerviz Drill Down Waterfall PRO by ZoomCharts With powerful customization options and intuitive interactions, Drill Down Waterfall PRO helps report creators present financial and operational data in a way that is easy to explore and understand. The latest update expands the functionality of Change thresholds with a new Automatic mode that detects subtotals and calculates the difference between consecutive subtotal segments, enabling clearer storytelling in multi-period reports. Key features include: Automatic change thresholds: Automatically detect subtotal columns and calculate the change between each consecutive subtotal and the first and last subtotal. Custom Sequence: Have full control over the column order with the Sequence field. Drill Down: Use multiple categories to enable drill down directly on the chart. Automatic Subtotal Calculation: Automatically calculate subtotals if their fields are empty. Annotations: Display markers and comments on the chart from Comment and Comment Marker fields. Customization: Customize X and Y axes, legends, tooltip content, and adjust the appearance settings for positive, negative and total columns separately. Thresholds: Display up to four constant or dynamic thresholds as lines or areas. Cross-chart filtering: Dynamically filter data across multiple visuals to create interactive, insightful and intuitive reports. Get Drill Down Waterfall PRO on AppSource Closing That’s a wrap for the April 2026 Power BI update. This month’s release builds on recent investments across reporting, modeling, visuals, and Copilot, while introducing new previews for you to explore. As always, we appreciate your feedback—especially on preview features—and encourage you to continue sharing your input as we work on future updates.
Introducing Copilot in Power BI Mobile Apps (Preview)
We are thrilled to announce the release of Copilot in Power BI Mobile apps! This new feature brings the power of AI directly to your fingertips, enhancing your mobile experience and offering a quick and simple way to dive into your data while on the go. With Copilot in Power BI Mobile apps, you no longer have to analyze data by yourself. Copilot provides report summaries and insights, so that you have the power to make data driven decisions anytime, anywhere. Imagine effortlessly pulling up an executive summary of the latest report with a single tap, or getting quick insights without going through all pages and visuals, simply by asking Copilot do it for you. Getting started Every report that meets Copilot requirements in Power BI will have the Copilot button in its header, ready to assist you with just a single tap. Once the Copilot pane is open, you can ask Copilot for a summary or to get insights. With just a few steps, you can get a summary that keeps you informed without diving into every detail manually. Exploring further with Copilot The summary is also a useful starting point for exploring your data. Once you receive the summary, taping on any data reference in the summary will get you a closer look at the relevant visual. The visuals are interactive, and you can dive deeper by long-tapping for tooltips, drilling down or up, or exploring more of your data as needed. Tapping on references icon will open the reference list, where all the referenced visuals are displayed with their relevant names and pages. This is very useful for easily going over all the visuals selected by Copilot from one place. And when you’re ready for more exploration with Copilot, you can select a suggested prompt from the bottom of the screen. These suggestions can include additional prompts like "Find insights" and “Summarize entire report" or summary adjustments like "Make it shorter" or "Make it formal". You can view more suggestions by tapping on the refresh button. Each prompt you select will provide an answer tailored to your context and needs. Share and Collaborate Once you have the summary you need, you can use the Copy option to copy and paste it into an email, Teams chat or any other platform. Along with the summary, a link to the report is also provided, enabling the recipient to access further details by opening the report directly from that link. To view the report again, you can close the Copilot chat. And don’t worry about losing your place, the chat history will stay intact when you close the chat and navigate to other pages, as long as you don't exit or refresh the report. Let us know what you think! This release marks only the beginning of Copilot’s journey on Power BI Mobile. We’re planning to expand Copilot’s capabilities, adding new AI-driven tools that will help you get the most out of your data when you are on the go. We invite you to give it a try and let us know what you think! Your feedback will help shape the future of Copilot in Power BI Mobile.Connect your data to the real world with the power of NFC and the Power BI Mobile Apps
We always strive to create new and exciting ways to help frontline workers get their job done with Power BI Mobile. We’re excited to announce a new feature specifically designed for this purpose: NFC Tag Support in the Power BI Mobile apps! This feature allows frontline workers to quickly find and access their data in the field, creating a seamless connection between data and the physical world. Imagine a retail manager pulling up the latest inventory data by tapping their device on an NFC tag placed at the entrance of a stockroom, or a production worker tapping a tag on the machine in front of them to view its performance data. Setting up NFC tags is easy! The first step in setting up NFC tags is purchasing them. Once you have, the setup is straightforward and is done directly from the app. You do not need an external app, desktop or service to set up the NFC tags with the data you need. Start by choosing the Power BI item you would like to register on the tag. All types of Power BI items, including reports, scorecards, dashboards, as well as sets of items like workspaces, folders, and apps, can be registered. Open the item you would like to register in the Power BI mobile app and start the registration process. (Please note that this feature is only available on NFC-compatible devices) You have the flexibility to determine how the item should open, you can decide whether or not it should open in full screen mode. For reports, you also have the option to register them in their default state or in their current state (with all applied filters, slicers and current open page). When that’s set, a screen will appear letting you know that your device is ready to scan. Tap your device on an empty NFC tag to register the item on the tag. Now you can place the tag with the Power BI item wherever it makes sense. Once placed, the tag can be used by you and others in your organization to access the item with a simple tap. Reading a Tag is effortless! Reading a tag is just as simple. First, you must have the Power BI mobile app installed on your device (and ensure that the device is NFC compatible). To read a tag, just tap the device on the NFC tag, similar to making a payment with a mobile wallet. The Power BI app doesn’t need to be open. In iOS, a push notification will be sent, and tapping it will open the item in the Power BI app. On an Android, the item will instantly open in the app. If a user doesn’t have permissions to access the item, they will be taken to the request access flow. To conclude, NFC tags in Power BI Mobile provide a seamless and efficient way to access data in your work environment. This functionality allows users to easily read or register items by tapping their NFC-compatible devices on the tags, enhancing productivity in various real-world scenarios. This feature is particularly beneficial for frontline workers in retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, ensuring fast and accurate data retrieval. Now is the perfect time to enhance your data accessibility by integrating NFC tags with your Power BI items. Download the Power BI mobile app, purchase NFC tags, and start setting them up today for a more connected and efficient workflow.
Power BI Report Server September 2023 Feature Summary
Welcome to the September 2023 Power BI Report Server release! This release focuses on new features that enhance viewing, like the Report Server mobile view port improvements, full screen for PBIX and RDL viewing, and mobile layout switcher. We are excited to support bubble range scaling for Reporting. These features have been inclusively designed with better UX for report viewing and sharing! Please read on for all the details, and feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. Report Server Full screen view Responsive view navigation Reporting New layout switcher Mobile layout interactive canvas New bubble range scaling setting Report Server Full screen view Customers have requested the ability to allow report consumers to present reports in full screen mode. We are excited to share, we have fulfilled this request. The full screen viewing option has been added to the view menu for PBIX reports and to the toolbar for RDL reports. To change view, select the view menu item and choose full screen view as shown below. Full screen view in PBIX report The full screen view has been added to the toolbar in RDL reports, located on the far-right side of the pagination toolbar as shown in the image below. Full screen view in RDL report Responsive view navigation For customers logging into Power BI Report Server with varying devices, we have enhanced the view port for smaller screens. This makes viewing reports more accessible. Users no longer need to scroll across to locate menu items. The view port has responsive design enabled for smaller viewers. The additional menu items are collapsed to accommodate the smaller screen size. Reporting New layout switcher We’ve added new buttons that make it easy for you to quickly switch between web and mobile layouts while you’re developing your reports. You’ll find the new switcher buttons down at the bottom of the screen, right next to the page navigator. Mobile layout interactive canvas With this latest update we are happy to announce that we have made the mobile canvas interactive. This new capability provides the ability to test how buttons, slicers, and visuals will behave on the app before publishing the report. But that’s not all. With this canvas interactivity, users can now interact with visuals directly and adjust Table and Matrix column headers to align perfectly with mobile screens. New bubble range scaling setting We are introducing the new bubble range scaling setting for scatter chart and map visuals! This setting gives report creators more control over how the bubble (marker) sizes respond to the data, making it more accurate or distinctive based on preference. With the magnitude option, the bubble areas closely follow the data proportions. With the data-range option, the bubble size limits are mapped to data minimum and maximum. The auto option, which is the default setting for new reports, selects the appropriate option based on data characteristics. For more information, visit our docs. This setting can be adjusted in formatting panel, Markers > Shape > Range scaling for scatter charts or Bubbles > Size > Range scaling for maps. For reports authored in earlier Power BI versions, these settings default to (Deprecated) for scatter charts (which differs in handling negative values), and Data range for map charts. Azure Maps charts will also include this feature in a coming product update. In the figure above, the size of each country represents Urban Population, which is also shown on the y-axis. Well, that concludes the feature summary for September 2023. Let us know what you think! Which features do you like the most, and why? Comment below. Continue to follow this blog for updates in the next release. Remember Power BI Report Server release cadence is September, January, and May. If you would like to be a part of our customer research for paginated reports and provide product feedback, prototype assessment and staying abreast with what’s new, register here. If you would like to join our Reporting Services - Migration to Power BI user group, register now. We’d love to have you join in the fun and tune in to our monthly events! As always, thank you for being loyal customers.
Supporting Azure Active Directory shared device mode (preview) for Power BI Mobile apps
We in Power BI continue to invest in building features that help frontline workers to use data and insights in their work. In this month’s release, the Power BI mobile apps add preview support for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) shared device mode. Frontline workers make up most of the workforce in many organizations. These are the employees, such as retail associates, factory workers, healthcare staff, and delivery drivers, who work directly with customers, clients, or other recipients of services. Frontline workers don't usually use their personal devices for work-related tasks but rather take out a work-related mobile device from a shared pool. The problem is that most mobile apps are designed for single users using their personal devices, which makes it cumbersome to switch between different accounts and apps on a shared device. This takes time, adds complexity, can lead to security issues, and impact productivity. Shared device mode was exactly designed to address these problems. What is shared device mode? Shared device mode is a device-level configuration that enables single sign-on (SSO) and device-wide sign-out for Microsoft Power BI and all other apps on the device that support this configuration. With shared device mode, frontline workers can securely share a single device throughout the day, signing in and out as needed: Once they sign in to any supported app, they will be logged into all other applications compatible with shared device mode as well, including the Power BI mobile app. Once the work is done and they need to return the device to the shared pool, they sign out of any supported app; all other applications integrated with shared device mode sign out as well, preventing unauthorized or unintended access by the next user. How to enable shared device mode for Power BI Mobile? Device administrators prepare the device to be shared by using a mobile device management (MDM) provider such as Microsoft Intune. The MDM pushes the Microsoft Authenticator app to the devices and turns on "Shared Mode" for each device through a profile update to the device. This Shared Mode setting is what changes the behavior of the supported apps on the device., including Power BI. You do not need to do any specific action in the Power BI Mobile app to enable shared device mode. The app reads this configuration from the device itself. Once the device is enrolled as a shared device, the Power BI mobile app starts to listen and comply with “global” sign-in and sign-out events, making it simple for the user to start working with the device and to clear all their data when their shift ends and the device is returned to the shared device pool. Next steps Shared device mode enables frontline workers to use shared devices to access Power BI content with ease and security. It leverages the capabilities of Azure AD and Microsoft Intune to provide a seamless and safe experience for users who need to switch between different accounts and apps on a shared device. Check these articles to learn how to configure shared device mode for iOS devices and Android devices.Choose a launch item for your Power BI mobile app
In this week's release of Power BI Mobile apps, we are happy to introduce the Launch Item. This feature allows you to configure an item to display whenever you launch your mobile app instead of the home page. This is useful if you have specific content that you always go to when you open your app, and you want to save time by being taken directly to that content rather than having to navigate to it every time. Organizations can also configure launch item for their users using MDM tools (such as Intune and other tools that support AppConfig). This is especially useful for frontline workers that need access to a single Power BI item that has all the data they need and do not want to waste time browsing and navigating their entire content to find it. It also reduces new employees' training time as the app just lands on the content they need without asking them to look for it first. What can be configured as a Launch item? A launch item can be a report, a specific report page, a dashboard, a scorecard, an organizational app, or even a specific item within an organizational app. How to configure a Launch item? To configure a launch item for yourself, follow these steps: Open the desired item (app, report, dashboard, scorecard). Navigate to the desired report and page. Use the “…” menu in the header and tap on the “Set as launch item.” Mobile device administrators can configure launch item for their users using an MDM tool that supports AppConfig file. All that is required (in addition to an MDM tool) is the item's URI or link: You can use an item (report, report page, dashboard, scorecard) universal link copied from your browser address bar. You can also use a report shareable link (using the "Share" button). In that case, the user will get access to the report automatically. When you configure an organizational app as a launch item, the app will be automatically installed, if the receiving user has permission to it. Please visit this page to learn how to use MDM AppConfig to remotely configure Power BI mobile apps, including launch items. Setting up a launch item does not mean you lose any features of the mobile app. All your Power BI content, as well as all the app's navigation features and pages, including the home page, are all still fully accessible. You can also easily change or remove your launch item anytime from the app’s settings. We hope this new feature will enhance your experience with the Power BI mobile app and help you access your most important content more quickly and easily. Next steps Get the latest Power BI Mobile app version from the Apple app store or Google Play and explore this exciting new feature today! And don't forget to let us know what you think in the comments below. We can't wait to hear from you!
