A few days back, Microsoft introduced over 50 new features to dataflows in Power BI. Around the same time, the ability to embed paginated reports in the data analytics service was introduced. Last month"s update for the desktop version of Power BI, meanwhile, brought a revamped Q&A, new xViz visuals, and more.
Now, a feature summary for the Power BI November update has been unveiled by Microsoft. This brings updates in a bunch of different areas for the service, such as in the reporting, analytics, and visualization components. A new modern ribbon bringing Power BI Desktop more in line with Office has been introduced as well. Notably, some of the latest features may already have been previewed last week as part of a live, limited-viewers sneak peek offered in the form of a new webinar series by the tech giant.
In any case, here"s a rundown of all that is new for this month"s release:
- Other
- Modern ribbon (preview)
- Reporting
- Decomposition tree visual (preview)
- Analytics
- Conditionally format button formatting
- Visualizations
- ArcGIS Maps for Power BI update
- New xViz visuals
- Advanced Gauge
- Hierarchical Filter
- ZoomCharts Drill-Down Waterfall Visual
- Financial Reporting Matrix by Profitbase
- Distribution
- Tree
- Data connectivity
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator connector
- Edit SAP variables experience now generally available
- Vena connector
- SiteImprove connector
- Product Insights connector
- Web By Example connector – support for extracting links
- Data Preparation
- AI functions in Power Query (Preview)
- Template apps
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Sales Operations
To learn about these in a bit more detail, you can check out the video below:
As far as AI functions in Power Query are concerned, these were brought to the Power BI service earlier this year. Essentially, these allow for the accessing of Azure ML models within the desktop application to obtain useful insights through image and text data. New buttons that incorporate some of these features will show up once the option for AI functions has been selected. However, text analytics and vision models are both premium-only features, and as such, cannot be refreshed in standard workspaces.
With regards to template apps being highlighted this month, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Sales Operations has been featured. Sales operations personnel can use this to identify LinkedIn profiles that match search criteria and the Social Selling Index across users. However, there are some requirements that need to be met beforehand, such as having the LinkedIn Sales Navigator Enterprise plan.
To gain access to all the aforementioned features, you can download the latest update for Power BI Desktop from here.