Here is my weekly BI-RoundUp with what has happened and what is new.

Power BI – Desktop for June

Finally the Power BI Desktop July update is here. So here are the details below of the new updates.

Reporting

The table and matrix visuals are now generally available.

Not only that but they have also made some additional enhancements which are you can now drill down on columns or rows.

There is also an update to the default style which makes it easier to read based on best practice.

As well as finally they honor the word wrapping if you have text that goes onto a second line, it will keep it on that second line.

Next is the ability to rename the fields in your reports. When renaming your fields it creates an Alias so your existing fields that you get from your data will remain the same.

There now also is the Custom Visuals store integration directly in the Power BI Desktop. I think that this is a much better experience instead of having to go to the browser and open to find a custom visual. As well as now you can also get your Custom Visual Certified which will mean that it is verified by Microsoft Custom Development team.

There are also new Custom Visual updates which is in the blog post. I am interested into looking at the Drilldown Player.

You can now also use the Relative Date Slicers in the Filters section in Power BI Desktop. I use the Relative Date slicers quite often so it is great to see the same functionality in the Filters section also.

Next is the responsive layout for Visuals. This is another amazing feature in that the layout will respond for your visual based on how large or small it is. This means that it will show the information you are trying to portray in the most efficient way possible. And they can currently be used on the following Visuals. And that you can disable this responsive layout if required.

There is a new waterfall option where you can specify the breakdown which then show you that breakdown field causing the increasing of decreasing between each neighboring categories.

Analytics & Reporting

This month there are two new Quick Measures that have been added, which are the Star Rating and Concatenated List of Values.

Bidirectional cross filtering for DirectQuery is now Generally available also.

Data Connectivity

The Snowflake connector is now Generally Available also.

Query Editing

There have been some additional enhancements to the “Add Columns from Examples” in the Query Editor. In this months update they have added support for Number and Date/Time/TImezone data.

Also you can reference their documentation article which will be updated in due course here: Add a column from an example in Power BI Desktop

Blog Link

You can find all the blog details with a YouTube video here: Power BI Desktop July Feature Summary

Power BI – Service Updates for June

There have been quite a few updates to the Power BI Service in the last month.

Some of the highlights are now the new unified API, which you can now use not only for API access, but also for Power BI Embedded.

There is also an update in the Dashboard tiles for the relative links which enables you to direct the tile to go to a specific report. As well as the Impala connector.

Also there is an updated version for the Personal Data Gateway, which now will enable you to delete it from the Power BI Service, as well as enhancements for speed and reliability.

And finally they have made some performance improvement for the Power BI Mobile App.

You can find the details here: Power BI Service and Mobile June Feature Summary

Power BI – Dashboard Email Subscriptions

You can now subscribe to daily emails on your Dashboards. This is really an awesome new feature so that you can now get a daily snapshot of your dashboard emailed to you.

More details are here: Introducing dashboard email subscriptions: a 360-degree view of your business in your inbox every day

Excel – Get & Transform Updates June 2017

It is great to see that there are a whole host of new features in the Get & Transform updates in Excel. As mentioned previously these features are often enabled in Power BI Desktop, so if you are looking for some additional help or documentation include Power BI in your search to find solutions.

Here are the new updates for June 2017

• New transformation features:
  • Add Column by Example.
  • Split Column (by Delimiter/Number of Characters) into rows.
  • Basic mode for Group By operation.
  • Extract Text Before/After/Between Delimiters.
  • Unpivot Only Selected Columns.
• Combine Files experience—ability to reference first file as example.
• New Go to Column in Query Editor.
• SAP HANA Connector—enhancements to Parameter Input UX.

As you can see above there are quite a lot of new features, I have been using the Columns by Example since it has been released and I find that it not only enables me to get the data that I want quicker. But it also enables me to learn new M functions that I could potentially use in other transformations. The Split Column update is also handy when you need data to be split into rows. As well as the Extract Text before or after or between delimeters as I have found often that I want something inbetween.

You can find all the details here: June 2017 updates for Get & Transform in Excel 2016 and the Power Query add-in