I had to re-write this, as I had a suspicion that the Power BI Desktop would be released soon and here it is, along with other updates.

Power BI – February Desktop Update


This Power BI Desktop update is here, and I have to say that there are some awesome additions and new improvements. So I will highlight below what I think are most relevant.

Report View

It is great to finally have the word wrap not only on the headers but also on the actual rows in the data.

Also having the capability to change the font size for the X and Y Axis in your charts is really handy. As sometimes the font was just too large. Along with this is the chart line thickness, which also can be a great guide for the users consuming the report to highlight something specific and draw their attention to that.

Analytics

I am sure that this will continue to expand and great to see that you now have got the options to calculate the Percent of Row Total and Percent of Column Total.

Data Connectivity

There are some great additions in here and having the capability to select related tables from ODBC and OLE DB connectors.

As well as having the capability to having unified text & CSV connectors, as well as being able to connect to the PowerApps Common Data Service.

Query Editor

I do really enjoy working in the query editor, and now having the option from the column header to select the locale directly from the column header.

As well as now the ability to insert steps into existing queries very easily. Which I have found in the past was not too difficult, but this new addition makes it a lot easier and seamless.

Other

And finally they have included the options to find Solution Templates as well as Partner Showcases very easily. This can assist you if you are looking for a particular solution template, or looking for a partner to potentially assist you with your Power BI project.

You can read all the updated details here: Power BI Desktop February Feature Summary

Power BI – iOS Mobile App now with Q&A

It is fantastic to see how the mobile app has evolved and I think that having the Q&A in the mobile app is really a smart move. Very often you want to find some piece of information that is not currently in a visual. And by using the Q&A you can find the information you are after.

And I have no doubt that you can also actually ask a question and it will translate that into words and bring up the visual you are after.

Here are the blog details: Now in preview: Conversational BI with Q&A on Power BI mobile apps (iOS)

Power BI – Custom Visual – Dual KPI

This is another really interesting visual from Microsoft, the dual KPI. This gives you the ability to have two KPI’s where you can compare different measures over the same timeline. I am sure that this can bring some valuable insights into your data.

You can download the visual here: Dual KPI

Power BI – PowerApps Common Data Service

As you can see above you can now connect to the PowerApps common data service. With the preview release they have enabled 10 perspectives to connect Power BI to. I am sure that as time goes on this list of perspectives will increase.

If you are using PowerApps and want to see how to connect and enrich your data using Power BI, read the blog post below.

Create Power BI reports and dashboards with PowerApps Common Data Service

Excel – Get & Transform updates for January 2017

For those people who use Excel it is great to see that they have updated the Get & Transform with the following.

  • New OLE DB connector.
  • Enhanced “Combine Binaries” experience when importing from any folder.
  • Maximize/Restore buttons in the Navigator and Query Dependencies dialogs.
  • Support for percentage data type.
  • Improved “Function Authoring” experience.
  • Improved performance for OData connector.

As you can see from the list above, there are some great additions as they keep on building on the existing features and I personally have used the Combined Binaries and it works really well and makes things a lot easier when working with Excel and CSV files.

You can find the blog post here: January 2017 updates for Get & Transform in Excel 2016 and the Power Query add-in