The November 2023 update of Microsoft Fabric introduces a series of new features and capabilities, particularly enhancing the Power BI experience. This article focuses exclusively on the Power BI updates within Fabric, discussing advancements in reporting, data connectivity, modeling, and visualizations.
Reporting Advancements
Button Slicer – A Revolution in Data Interaction:
The Button slicer, Power BI’s latest addition, is set to transform data slicing. It replaces the traditional tile slicer with a more dynamic, customizable interface. Key features include:
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- Enhanced shape and appearance customization, including corner radius control.
- An adjustable grid layout for precise design management.
- Overflow styles with pagination or scrolling options, elevating layout flexibility.
- Revamped alignment, format properties, and a Label feature for in-depth data detailing.
- Enhanced image control and interactive states to create engaging, responsive designs.
- Updated single select and multi-select features, ensuring user convenience.
- Improved Tooltips experience, supporting both default and report page tooltips.
Reference Labels – Enhancing Card Visuals:
Reference Labels add another layer to the card visual’s functionality, allowing the addition of custom labels for more contextual data presentation. Features include:
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- Capability to add multiple data fields to Reference Labels.
- Three main customizable components: Title, Value, and Detail.
- Options for horizontal or vertical layout with custom spacing and padding.
Q&A Visual Enhancement with Copilot:
The Q&A visual now incorporates Copilot, enhancing its ability to process natural language inputs. This integration facilitates the creation of synonyms, ensuring accurate, consistent answers from Power BI’s algorithmic engine.
Data Connectivity and Service Innovations
Azure Resource Graph Connector:
The introduction of the Azure Resource Graph connector empowers users to transform Azure Resource Graph queries into Power BI visualizations, enabling more in-depth data insights.
Enhanced Connectivity with Profisee and Bloomberg:
Updates to the Profisee and Bloomberg Enterprise Data and Analytics connectors improve data quality analytics and backend performance, respectively.
Explore Public – Ad-hoc Data Exploration:
The new Explore feature allows users to conduct ad-hoc data exploration, creating a focused environment for matrix/visual pairing to quickly derive answers from data.
Copilot for Power BI in Fabric:
Copilot in Fabric, including Power BI, assists users in report creation, summarizing data, and generating synonyms, enhancing report accuracy and speed.
OneLake Integration for Import-mode Semantic Models:
OneLake’s integration allows for seamless data writing from semantic models to delta tables in OneLake, facilitating data access and reducing the need for complex ETL solutions.
Modeling Enhancements
Semantic Models:
The renaming of datasets to semantic models clarifies their role in Power BI and Fabric, reflecting their capabilities in enterprise-grade semantic modeling.
Direct Lake Support on Synapse Data Warehouse:
Semantic models now support Direct Lake mode with Synapse Data Warehouses, offering faster query performance without data duplication.
DAX Query View:
The new DAX query view in Power BI Desktop enables users to write and run DAX queries directly on their model, streamlining data exploration and analysis.
Visualizations and Mobile Features
Editor’s Pick and New Visuals in AppSource:
The update highlights new and notable visuals like Apex Gantt Chart and Zebra BI Tables 6.6, enhancing the range of data visualization options.
Dynamic Dataset Binding for Paginated Reports:
Dynamic binding in paginated reports allows for a single RDL report template to connect to multiple datasets, simplifying report management.