Power BI News and Blogs

The semantic model settings pane is becoming the default way to configure semantic models in the Power BI service. The pane opens alongside your workspace, so you can review and change settings without leaving the current page. It provides the same settings as the full semantic model settings page while keeping the surrounding context visible. The […]

In December, we announced the retirement of Power BI Q&A, our legacy natural-language querying experience, with retirement planned for December 2026. To give current Q&A user's additional time to assess their dependencies and transition to newer Copilot-powered solutions, we’re extending the retirement date to February 2027. This post […]

Many enterprise Power BI semantic models use Azure Databricks as a data source. When building these models, developers and architects face an early and consequential decision: which storage mode to use. Cost, security, and ease of development and tuning all factor in — but report performance is probably the most important of them, because […]

Microsoft has refreshed its Power BI sample reports with modern visual defaults, stronger semantic models, mobile-optimized layouts, and newer authoring features to help creators build clearer, more effective reports.

Calculated columns are now available in preview for Direct Lake on OneLake semantic models. This has been one of the most requested capabilities since Direct Lake launched and closes a long-standing gap with Import and DirectQuery storage modes.You can define calculated columns directly in your semantic model using DAX in web modeling and Power BI […]

Upgrading Power BI Dataflows Gen1 is now easier with the Dataflows Upgrade Wizard. Now in preview for eligible workspaces assigned to Fabric capacity, the wizard provides a guided experience to upgrade Power BI Dataflows Gen1 items to Fabric Dataflows Gen2 (CI/CD). The wizard preserves key properties of the existing dataflow and assesses each item […]

Welcome to the August 2026 Power BI Feature Summary! This month includes updates across reporting, modeling, data connectivity, mobile, embedded analytics, and developer experiences, with a mix of generally available enhancements and new preview capabilities. Let's take a look at what's new. Table of Contents Download Power BI Desktop Events […]

If your organization uses Power BI, you own something most companies chasing AI are desperately trying to build. You just may not know it by name.Let me explain.The invisible thing behind every reportEvery Power BI report you have ever opened sits on top of a semantic model. Every single one. No exceptions. The report is the visible part; the […]

Power BI Projects (PBIP) make reports and semantic models file-based, enabling source control, automation, and other developer workflows. You can edit those files directly in a code editor or through external tools. Until now, changes made outside of Power BI Desktop wouldn't appear until you restarted the application. With this update, Power BI […]

TMDL View on the Web is a feature in Power BI that enables developers to view and edit semantic models as code directly in the browser using TMDL. It expands the Power BI web modelling experience by introducing a rich code editor for working with TMDL scripts—giving pro developers full transparency into the semantic model code and enabling more […]

Bring your Power BI reports to life with dynamic conditional formatting for lines and legends that stays consistent and updates automatically as your data changes.

One of the most rewarding parts of working with DAX is discovering that two measures can return exactly the same result while taking very different paths through the engine. To the report user, there is no difference. The number is correct, the visual renders, and the report appears to work. [...]Read More »

Power BI's modern visual defaults and new Customize theme experience enable report authors to centrally manage colors, typography, visual styling, page settings, and filter pane formatting across an entire report, creating consistent, professional reports faster while preserving visual-specific customizations.

Welcome to the July 2026 Power BI update!This month, we're introducing new capabilities across reporting, modeling, mobile, and embedded analytics. Highlights include expanded modern visual defaults, conditional formatting improvements for line charts and legends, new org app capabilities and APIs, Model Options in the Power BI Service, and TMDL […]

The future of Power BI and Copilot starts by meeting users where they already work. We’re bringing trusted Power BI answers into Microsoft 365 Copilot first, so people can ask questions of governed business data in the flow of work — then carrying that richer, more conversational experience back into the Power BI service itself.

Power BI’s new date picker slicer helps report authors set dynamic default date ranges while giving viewers flexible, easy ways to explore dates, ranges, and rolling periods as data refreshes.

We’re proud to share that Microsoft has once again been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms for the nineteenth consecutive year.

Discover how the Shape Map visual (Generally Available) in Power BI helps you bring custom geographic boundaries, flexible map formats, and data-driven color formatting into your reports.

Discover how Power BI’s tooltip (Generally Available) options help you tailor hover experiences—from curated field lists and sentence-style insights to fully custom report page tooltips.

Visual calculations (Generally Available) in Power BI, making it easier to add DAX calculations directly to the visual where they’re used.

Power BI reports continue to help analysts build secure, governed BI experiences on semantic models, while Fabric Apps expands what developers can create from the same trusted data.

Level: Beginners Original Post: November, 2016 It was only a few months after Power BI was born, that Matt first posted on this topic.  At that time, his focus was still primarily on Power Pivot in Excel, as Power BI was still in its infancy. Despite this, understanding when it [...]Read More »

Why Star Schema Matters More Than Ever in the Age of AI It was over a decade ago that Matt first posted on The Optimal Shape for Power BI Data.  Throughout the years since, Matt consistently promoted this as one of the most important lessons he taught Power BI users [...]Read More »

Original Post : Matt Allington, 24 Apr 2018 Background Technically you don’t need calendar tables to use Power BI, but for most reports that go beyond a simple Excel spreadsheet analysis, Calendars are an essential component of a successful Semantic Model.  There are many different approaches to creating and maintaining [...]Read More »

Level: Beginners Power BI has evolved significantly since Matt’s original publication of this article in 2016. While the foundational concepts remain relevant, modern features and best practices offer more secure, scalable, and collaborative ways to share content. This updated guide reflects the latest capabilities and recommendations for […]