In March, Microsoft introduced a bunch of new features for Power BI mobile that focussed on user control. Later in the same month, the firm announced general availability for Query Diagnostics in the service's desktop version. Moreover, a couple of days back, a feature summary for Power BI Mobile was released, going over new capabilities that have been brought to the application in March.
Today, shortcuts for Power BI Android have now been released. These target users who want to streamline their access to various capabilities without having to navigate through the app.
As such, reports and dashboards shortcuts can now be pinned to device home screens, providing one-tap accessibility. The Power BI app will suggest items that can be pinned based on the frequency of access. For those who would rather pick out the relevant items themselves, an "Add shortcut" option is provided in the action menu.
This capability further expands to items within apps and external tenants (referred to as B2B items). These 'advanced scenarios' for shortcut-making have been described by Microsoft as follows:
Shortcuts to app items: Many of our customers use apps to distribute content within their organizations. Each app has a landing item that opens by default when you navigate to the app. But what if this default item is not the one you need? You can also create shortcuts to items that are inside the app, getting direct access to them, without first having to land on the app’s default landing item.
Shortcuts to external tenant items (B2B): Shortcuts can also be used to keep track of items shared with you from external tenants (B2B items). Instead of saving the “shared report” emails you receive from Power BI for accessing external content, you can now create shortcuts for these items and access them directly from your device’s home screen.
Quick access options have also been added to the app launcher itself. These can interestingly be used to directly create a shortcut on the home screen through the drag-and-drop capability, as showcased in the GIF on the side.
You can make use of this feature by downloading the latest version of the Power BI app via the Play Store. Note that only devices that run on Android 8 or higher will be able to utilize app shortcuts.
