BIFocal Podcast: Recent Episodes
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This is episode 289 recorded on March 21th, 2025 where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric February 2025 Feature Summary including API updates, Monitoring changes, Security updates, and AI Skill enhancements.
- Fabric Platform
- Fabric API update: control cross-region deployments in Fabric Deployment pipelines
- Permission tab in the OneLake catalog
- Govern your individual data estate in OneLake catalog (Preview)
- Fabric Capacities Management APIs
- OneLake
- Announcing support for storage accounts that are behind a firewall for Mirrored Azure Databricks catalog items (Preview)
- Data Engineering
- Managed private endpoint and private link support for Native Execution Engine in Spark
- New Capacity settings for better compute governance on your Data Engineering Workloads
- T-SQL Notebook enhancements
- Full CI/CD support for T-SQL notebook including Git and Deployment pipeline
- New Lakehouse samples
- Monitoring for High Concurrency
- Notebook Snapshots enhancements
- Fabric Spark Resource Analysis (Generally available)
- Data Science
- Announcing AI functions for LLM-powered data enrichment and transformation (Preview)
- Support for multiple data sources in AI Skill
- AI Skill is now conversational
- Semantic model support with AI Skill
- KQL databases support in AI Skill
- Reason over multiple steps with AI Skill
- Data Warehouse
- Collate clause support in Warehouse (Generally available)
- Copilot for Data Warehouse Chat (Preview)
- Browse files with OPENROWSET (Preview)
- Use the BULK INSERT to load your data (Preview)
- Nested common table expression (Generally available)
- Real-Time Intelligence
- Configure latency of Eventhouse OneLake availability
- Real-Time Dashboard & Power BI templates for Eventhouse Monitoring
- New Real-Time Dashboard customization features: more control, better usability, and improved performance
- New and improved Data Source Tree in KQL Queryset
- Data exploration is now available for raw KQL table data
- Databases
- Performance Dashboard in SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
- Data Factory
- Mirroring in Fabric now supports workspace monitoring (Preview)
- New regions available for Mirroring in Fabric
- Open mirroring for SAP sources – Simplement and SNP
The post Episode 289 – Microsoft Fabric February 2025 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 288 recorded on March 19th, 2025 where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric February 2025 Feature Summary, specifically the Power BI section, including a new baseline version of Power BI Desktop, Copilot changes for Power BI, a trick to get conditional formatting for Visual Calcs working, and performance improvements for Direct Lake mode.
- Power BI
- General
- Upgrade Power BI Desktop to 64-bit version
- Upgrade Power BI Desktop to February 2025 version
- Copilot and AI
- Copilot in the Power BI mobile apps: now available on iPads and Android tablets (Preview)
- Updated section – ‘How Copilot arrived at this’
- Explore from Copilot visual answers
- Reporting
- Conditional formatting support for visual calculations (Preview)
- Publish to Web Support for the Azure Maps visual (Coming soon)
- Modeling
- Live edit of semantic models in Direct Lake mode with Power BI Desktop – updates (Preview)
- Data connectivity
- Performance improvement in Snowflake connector (Preview)
- Use the official ODBC driver to connect to Vertica database (Preview)
- Other
- The OneLake catalog is now available in Microsoft Teams
- Monitoring Hub enhancement for Semantic models
- General
The post Episode 288 – Power BI February 2025 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 287 recorded on March 13th, 2025 where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric January 2025 Feature Summary including Python Notebooks in preview, Lineage enhancements to spark notebooks, lots of DBA enhancements to Data Warehouse, Tenant Level Private Link for Databases, and CI/CD preview for most of Fabric.
- Data Engineering
- Python notebook (Preview)
- Notebook live versioning
- NotebookUtils session management utilities
- Native Execution Engine on Runtime 1.3: simplified enablement and transition from Runtime 1.2
- Legacy timestamp support in Native Execution Engine on Runtime 1.3
- Notebook and Spark Job definition execution with service principal
- Lineage Enhancement to Spark Notebook
- Data Warehouse
- COPY INTO column count check
- Enhancing COPY INTO operations with Granular Permissions in Data Warehouse
- Introducing default schema changes in Data Warehouse
- Enhanced performance metrics in Query Insights
- Previewing estimated Query Plan available via SHOWPLAN_XML
- Query Hints in Fabric Data Warehouse
- Simplifying search & introducing Filter in Object Explorer
- Open from SSMS & VS Code
- Git Status Bar to Fabric Warehouse Artifact
- Tooltip support for built-in functions
- Stay updated with IntelliSense
- JSON aggregates (Preview)
- Spatial analytic functions
- SQL analytics endpoint performance improvement
- Databases
- Tenant Level Private Link (Preview)
- Copilot for SQL database in Fabric Region Availability
- Real-time Intelligence
- Override late arrival tolerance in Activator
- Create new Activator items
- RTI ALM & APIs GA
- Data Factory
- Mirroring
- Copy Job
- Dataflow Gen2
- Conclusion
The post Episode 287 – Microsoft Fabric January 2025 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 286 recorded on March 12th, 2025 where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric January 2025 Feature Summary, specifically the Power BI section, including Storytelling updates for the PowerPoint Add-in, Semantic Model version history, TMDL view in Power BI Desktop, and more.
- Power BI
- Copilot and AI
- Unlock suggested questions from standard prompts in Copilot
- Reporting
- Explore this data: new entry point from a visual
- Storytelling in PowerPoint – New reset behavior
- Storytelling in PowerPoint – Supporting page up & down
- Save to OneDrive and SharePoint: updated file picker (Preview)
- Enhancement to Text slicer (preview)
- Enhancements to Treemap visual
- Modeling
- Semantic model version history (Preview)
- Edit your data model in the Power BI Service – updates (Preview)
- Live edit of semantic models in Direct Lake mode with Power BI Desktop – updates (Preview)
- TMDL scripting experience (Preview)
- Data connectivity
- New Snowflake connector implementation (Preview)
- Visualizations
- Drill Down Scatter PRO by ZoomCharts: The All-in-One Scatter Visual
- Lollipop Chart by Powerviz
- Other
- Now in Power BI Desktop – OneLake catalog
- Copilot and AI
- Platform
- Folder support in Git
- OneLake
- OneLake Catalog – Semantic model table & column description
- Filtering workspaces in OneLake Catalog
The post Episode 286 – Power BI January 2025 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 285 recorded live in Stockholm on December 3rd, 2024 where John & Jason talk about the expansion of the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem announced at Microsoft Ignite and interesting conversations that have been had at ESPC about Fabric.
ESPC25 | Conference | Ireland | Dec 1-4, 2025
The post Episode 285 – A conversation about Microsoft Fabric at ESPC appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 284 recorded on October 9th, 2024 where John & Jason talk the FabCon Europe 2024 and all of the announcements made there.
- Fabric Monthly Update Blog
- Power BI Monthly Update Blog
Core* Announcing the Private Preview of the Microsoft Fabric SKU Calculator at the European Fabric Community Conference * Announcing Service principal support for Fabric APIs * Announcing the new Terraform Provider for Microsoft Fabric (Public Preview) * Tag your data to enrich item curation and discovery
OneLake* Databricks Unity Catalog tables available in Microsoft Fabric * Google Cloud Storage shortcuts and S3 Compatible shortcuts (Generally Available) * OneLake shared access signatures (SAS) now available in public preview
Data Warehouse* Announcing the Public Preview of T-SQL Notebook in Fabric * New editor improvements for Fabric Data Warehouse and SQL Analytics Endpoint * Copilot for Data Warehouse Public Preview Update * Working with large data types in Fabric warehouse * Announcing improved JSON support in Fabric DW
Data Engineering* Announcing the Fabric Apache Spark Diagnostic Emitter: Collect Logs and Metrics * Introducing High Concurrency Mode for Notebooks in Pipelines for Fabric Spark * Transform, Validate and Enrich Data with Python User Data Functions in your Data pipelines * Announcement: Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies have been extended to Fabric lakehouses
Data Science* Harness Microsoft Fabric AI Skill to Unlock Context-Rich Insights from your Data * Unlock faster insights with the new Copilot conversational mode (Public Preview) * Important billing update coming to Copilot and AI in Fabric
Real-Time Intelligence* Set alerts on KQL Querysets with Data Activator triggers * Announcing Updates to Data Activator in Public Preview
Data Factory* Announcing Public Preview: Incremental Refresh in Dataflows Gen2 * Announcing the General Availability of Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric * Announcing Public Preview: Copy Job in Microsoft Fabric * Announcing the General Availability of Mirroring for Snowflake in Microsoft Fabric * Mirroring Azure SQLDB in Fabric – New features in Public Preview and what’s coming up * Announcing General Availability of Fabric Pipeline Integration in On-premises Data Gateway * Fast Copy in Dataflows Gen2 is now Generally Available * Several New Enhancements Announced for Fabric Data pipeline
Power BI* Connect your data to the real world with the power of NFC and the Power BI Mobile Apps * Enhanced Report Creation in the Power BI Service with Copilot (Public Preview)
The post Episode 284 – Recap from FabCon Europe appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 283 recorded on September 4th, 2024 where John & Jason talk the Microsoft Fabric August 2024 Feature Summary.
- Copilot and AI
- Ask Copilot questions against your semantic model (preview)
- Reporting
- Visual level format strings (preview)
- Dynamic per recipient subscriptions (Generally Available)
- Deliver subscriptions to OneDrive and SharePoint (Generally Available)
- Updated Save and Upload to OneDrive Flow in Power BI
- Data limit
- Visuals, shapes and line enhancements
- Modeling
- DAX query view in the web
- Embedded Analytics
- Narrative visual with Copilot available in SaaS embed
- Power BI Other Topics
- Paginated Reports: Sharing of reports connecting to Get Data data sources made easy
- Fabric Core
- Workspace filter improvement to support nested folders
- OneLake
- OneLake data access role improvements
- Synapse
- Data Warehouse
- Managing V-Order behavior of Fabric Warehouses
- Delta Lake Log Publishing Pause and Resume
- Alter Table add Nullable Column
- Truncate Table
- Mirroring Azure SQL Database
- Mirroring integration with modern get data experience
- Data Engineering
- Announcing MsSparkUtils upgrade to NotebookUtils
- Import Notebook UX improvement
- Fabric Runtime Lifecycle
- Data Science
- Semantic Link Labs is now live!
- Apply MLFlow tags on ML experiment runs and model versions
- Track related ML Experiment runs in your Spark Application
- Monitor ML Experiments from the Monitor Hub
- Use PREDICT with Fabric AutoML models
- The AI skill is now in public preview
- Real-Time Intelligence
- Fabric Real-Time Hub Teaching Bubble
- KQL Queryset REST API support
- Data Warehouse
- Data Factory
- Dataflow Gen2
- Certified connector updates
- Data pipeline
- New connectors
- Data Warehouse Connector Supports TLS 1.3
- Easily Connect to your Azure Resources by Modern Get Data Experience in Data pipeline
- Dataflow Gen2
The post Episode 283 – Microsoft Fabric August 2024 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 282 recorded on August 23rd, 2024 where John & Jason talk the Power BI August 2024 Feature Summary including Ask Copilot questions against your semantic model in Desktop, Visual level format strings, DAX query view in the web, and the narrative visual with Copilot in embedded.
- Copilot and AI
- Ask Copilot questions against your semantic model (preview)
- Reporting
- Visual level format strings (preview)
- Dynamic per recipient subscriptions (Generally Available)
- Deliver subscriptions to OneDrive and SharePoint (Generally Available)
- Updated Save and Upload to OneDrive Flow in Power BI
- Data limit
- Visuals, shapes and line enhancements
- Modeling
- DAX query view in the web
- Embedded Analytics
- Narrative visual with Copilot available in SaaS embed
- Visualizations
- Editor’s pick of the quarter
- New visuals in AppSource
- Filter by Powerviz
- Pie of Pie by JTA
- Drill Down Pie PRO by ZoomCharts
- Hierarchical Bar Chart
- Deneb: Declarative Visualization in Power BI
- Other
- Paginated Reports: Sharing of reports connecting to Get Data data sources made easy
The post Episode 282 – Power BI August 2024 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
Title: Episode 281 – Interview with Charles Webb
This is episode 281 recorded on August 9th, 2024 where John & Jason talk to Charles Webb, Principle PM Manager for Data Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric, about Fabric, Data Warehouse, his history with Power BI & Dataflows, AI, college sports & business, his work in philantrophy and much more.
The post Episode 281 – Interview with Charles Webb appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 280 recorded on July 24th, 2024 where John & Jason talk to Josh Caplan, Principal Group Product Manager for OneLake in Microsoft Fabric, about Fabric, OneLake, Shortcuts and much more.
The post Episode 280 – Josh Caplan on OneLake appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
Description: This is episode 274 recorded on March 19th, 2024 where John & Jason talk the Power BI February 2024Feature Summary including updates to Visual Cals, Power BI Home, Measure descriptions with Copilot, Data overview in Explore, and TMDL in Power BI Desktop Developer Mode.
Show Notes* Reporting + Visual calculations + Dynamic subscriptions for Power BI reports + On-object Interaction Updates + Power BI Home in Desktop is Enabled by Default + Enhanced Reference Layer in Power BI Azure Maps Visual * Modeling + Measure descriptions with Copilot + DAX query view improvements + Data connectivity + Certified connectors updates * Service + Storytelling in PowerPoint – Replace report URLs with shareable links in Power BI add-in + Data overview in Explore + DirectQuery connections update * Mobile + Shared device mode is now GA! * Developers + Power BI Custom Visuals New Local Storage API + On-object interaction support for custom visuals + TMDL in Power BI Desktop Developer Mode * Visualizations + Editor’s pick of the quarter + New visuals in AppSource + Multiple Sparklines + Rose Donut Pie Chart by Powerviz + xViz Gantt Chart by Lumel + Control Chart XmR by Nova Silva + Drill Down Graph PRO * Purview + More users can now collaborate with protected PBIX in Power BI desktop
The post Episode 274 – Power BI February 2024 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 267 recorded on November 17th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about the release to GA of Microsoft Fabric and everything around it Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft 365 Data in Microsoft Fabric, and the Public Preview of Copilot for Power BI in Microsoft Fabric.
Fabric workloads are now generally available!
Fabric + Microsoft 365 Data: Better Together
Microsoft Fabric November 2023 update
Microsoft Fabric, explained for existing Synapse users
Announcing General Availability: Explore the Capabilities of Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric
Datasets renamed to semantic models
Power BI November 2023 Feature Summary
Introducing Explore (Public Preview)
New button slicer | Public preview
New card’s reference labels | Public preview
Empower Power BI users with Microsoft Fabric and Copilot
The post Episode 267 – Microsoft Ignite 2023 – Fabric is GA appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 266 recorded on October 19th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about the Power BI updates for October 2023 including the Power BI Desktop OneDrive and SharePoint integration, Power BI Home in Desktop, and the ability to edit your data model in the Power BI Service.
Contents* Reporting + Power BI Desktop OneDrive and SharePoint integration + On-object Interaction Updates + New! Date Hierarchy on data flyout + New! Placeholder text for direct text editing + New! Ribbon and Funnel charts now support on-object formatting. + Power BI Home in Desktop + Deduplication rules for composite models on Power BI Datasets and Analysis Services * Modeling + Edit your data model in the Power BI Service – Updates + Model explorer public preview with calculation group authoring and creating relationships in the properties pane * Data connectivity + Snowflake (Connector Update) + Planview OKR (New Connector) + BitSight Security Ratings (Connector Update) + Starburst Enterprise (Connector Update) * Service + OneLake data hub – Quick access to your data - Explorer pane – Quick access - Favorite items + Deployment pipelines – A customized pipeline is finally here! - Create a customized deployment pipeline of 2-10 stages - Deployment pipeline multi-tasking - A new entry point to Deployment pipelines main page * Visualizations + New visuals in AppSource + ValQ Plan + Date Picker by Powerviz + Drill Down Network PRO: Show Categorical Relationships with Ease + TMap 2.1 + Inforiver Enterprise brings writeback to Fabric Lakehouse & Warehouse.
The post Episode 266 – Power BI October 2023 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 265 recorded on October 19th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about the Power BI updates for August 2023 including the interactive mobile canvas, changes to the online model editing experience, and GIT support for paginated reports.
Contents* General + Upgrade Power BI Desktop .NET Framework to 4.7.2 or newer * Reporting + Mobile layout interactive canvas * Modeling + Edit your data model in the Power BI Service – Updates + Edit linguistic relationships in Q&A setup + DAX function changes to MINX and MAXX + Edit relationships in the properties pane * Data Connectivity + SAP HANA (Connector Update) + Emplifi Metrics (New Connector) * Service + Row-level security test as role improvements * Mobile + Supporting AAD Shared device mode * Developers + Git integration - Paginated reports now supported with git integration - Checkout and Switch Branches in a Workspace - New E2E CI/CD tutorial now available * Visualizations + New visuals in AppSource + Beeswarm Chart + Explore time-based data down to each millisecond with Drill Down TimeSeries PRO + New Updates for accoPLANNING (Release 57) + Zebra BI Charts on-visual settings + Word Cloud by Powerviz + Innofalls Charts: A Versatile and Interactive Visual + Hierarchy Chart by MAQ Software + Power BI JSON Report Theme Generator by BIBB
The post Episode 265 – Power BI September 2023 Feature Summary and Power Platform Conference Wrap-up appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 264 recorded some time in August where John & Jason talk to Heather Cook, Principal PM Manager at Microsoft for Power Platform, where we discuss the upcoming Power Platform Conference, the Microsoft community ecosystem, and learning & upskilling.
The post Episode 264 – Interview With Heather Cook appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 263 recorded sometime in August where John & Jason talk about the Power BI updates for August 2023 including improvements to on-object interactions, XMLA write support for Direct Lake datasets, and improvements to the PBIP format.Show Notes:* Reporting + New layout switcher + New bubble range scaling setting + On-Object Interaction – Updates - Resizing and positioning to the on-object menus - On-object format subselections now supported in spotlight and focus mode * Modeling + Updates to ORDERBY function * Data Connectivity + New modern data connectivity and discovery experience in Dataflows + Lakehouses (Connector Update) * Service + XMLA Write support for Direct Lake datasets + Automatic replica synchronization for Dataset Scale-Out * Mobile + Choose your start-up content * Developers + Published AppSource visuals now generate leads in Partner center and CRM + Publish a Power BI Project (PBIP) directly from Power BI Desktop * Visualizations + New visuals in AppSource + Editor’s pick of the quarter + Drill Down Combo Bar PRO by ZoomCharts + Sunburst Chart by Powerviz + xViz Performance Flow by Lumel
The post Episode 263 – August 2023 Power BI Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
Description: This is episode 259 recorded on June 7th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about Microsoft Fabric licensing from a Power BI perspective. We’ll talk about Pro licenses, capacity-based […]
The post Episode 259 – Fabric Licensing for Power BI appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 258 recorded on June 5th, 2023 where John & Jason review the May 2023 updates to Power BI, and boy, it’s a doozey. We cover Microsoft Fabric […]
The post Episode 258 – May 2023 Power BI Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 257 recorded on May 3rd, 2023 where John & Jason talk to Rui Romano, Principal Program Manager for Power BI at Microsoft, about the upcoming advancements for developers using Power BI Developer mode.
Show Notes:Introducing Microsoft Fabric and Copilot in Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Build Session: Empower every BI professional to do more with Microsoft Fabric
Introducing git integration in Microsoft Fabric for seamless source control management
Manage a workspace with git – Microsoft Fabric
The post Episode 257 – Power BI Developer mode w\ Rui Romano appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 256 recorded on May 24th, 2023 where John & Jason talk to Gabi Münster, Senior Program Manager on the Fabric CAT Team at Microsoft, about the announcements made at Microsoft Build 2023.
Notes:Introducing Microsoft Fabric: Data analytics for the era of AI
Introducing Microsoft Fabric and Copilot in Microsoft Power BI
fabric.microsoft.com
Microsoft 365 Data + Microsoft Fabric better together
Microsoft OneLake in Fabric, the OneDrive for data
Introducing git integration in Microsoft Fabric for seamless source control management
Introducing Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric
Introducing Synapse Data Engineering in Microsoft Fabric
Introducing Synapse Data Science in Microsoft Fabric
Introducing Synapse Data Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
Sense, analyze, and generate insights with Synapse Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric
Driving actions from your data with Data Activator
Ingest, transform, and route real-time events with Microsoft Fabric event streams
The post Episode 256 – News from Build w\ Gabi Münster appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 255 recorded on April 28th, 2023 where John & Jason talk to Rosie Levasseur, Senior Product Manager for Power BI, all about the on-object feature set and the changes that have and will be made for Power BI Creators.
Notes:Power BI April 2023 Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI
The On-Object Interactions – Updates
Power BI March 2023 Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI
Introducing the On-Object interactions (Opt-in)
The post Episode 255 – Interview with Rosie Levassuer appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 254 recorded on April 14th, 2023 where John & Jason talk to Emily Lisa, Senior Product Manager for Power BI, about the newly announced Public Preview of the “Edit your data model in the Power BI service” feature.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
Show Notes:Edit your data model in the Power BI Service (Preview) | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI
The post Episode 254 – Interview with Emily Lisa appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 253 recorded on April 12th, 2023 where John & Jason talk to Zoe Douglas, Senior Program Manager for Power BI, about Dynamic format strings for measures, the new Apply all slicers and Clear all slicers buttons, and the Optimize Ribbon.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
Show NotesPower BI Blog: April 2023 Feature Summary – Dynamic format strings for measures
Deep dive into the new Apply all slicers and Clear all slicers buttons!
Deep dive into Optimize ribbon and streamline your Power BI authoring
The post Episode 253 – Interview with Zoe Douglas appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 252 recorded on April 12, 2023 where John & Jason talk about the Power BI updates for April 2023 including Dynamic format strings for measures, Filters for web created paginated reports, tooltip auto-scale and much more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
Show NotesYouTube video: Power BI Update – April 2023 – YouTube
- Reporting
- Dynamic format strings for measures
- On-Object Interaction – Updates
- New tooltip auto-scale
- Analytics
- Update to Quick measure suggestions
- Modeling
- Composite models on Power BI Datasets and Analysis Services models
- Updates to ORDERBY function
- New DAX functions: RANK and ROWNUMBER
- Data Connectivity
- Oracle database (Connector Update)
- Service
- New features to Deployment Pipeline
- View schema changes line-by-line
- Choose whether to continue the deployment in case of a failure
- Storytelling in PowerPoint – New style option
- Visualizing views in Power Apps with Power BI quick report is enabled by default
- New features to Deployment Pipeline
- Paginated Reports
- Paginated Reports Feature Summary
- Mobile
- Enhanced tooltips on visuals in the Power BI Mobile app
- Hierarchies are now supported in the Power BI Mobile app
- Visualizations
- Acterys Reporting Suite 3.0 – Reporting
- Box and Whisker Chart by MAQ Software
- Feature Summary for Drill Down Graph PRO
- DualCard Visual
The post Episode 252 – April 2023 Power BI Updates appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 251 recorded March 24th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about and the recap the news from the past few weeks in the Power BI space including the retirement of Streaming Dataflows, Query parallelism, Scanner API updates, and much more.
For show notes please visit www.bifocal.show
Show NotesThe Future of Version Control for Tabular Models – Mathias Thierbach,Gabi Münster – YouTubehttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/deep-dive-into-the-new-apply-all-slicers-and-clear-all-slicers-buttons/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/on-object-public-preview-opt-in/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-scanner-api-scenarios/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/storytellingga/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/query-parallelization-helps-to-boost-power-bi-dataset-performance-in-directquery-mode/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-datamart-february-2023-feature-summary/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/multitasking-in-microsoft-teams-with-power-bi-is-getting-better/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-retirement-of-streaming-dataflows/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-availability-expansion-of-the-ssrs-migration-tool-to-power-bi/
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/building-multi-language-reports-for-power-bi-in-2023/
The post Episode 251 – Catching up with the News appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 250 recorded March 14th, 2023 where John & Jason talk about the March 2023 Power BI updates which include the Apply all slicers button, Clear all slicers button, and Optimization presets update, Storytelling in PowerPoint and Power BI org app multiple audiences have gone GA, and the new on-object interaction.
Show NotesMicrosoft Build 2023 – https://build.microsoft.com/
March 2023 Feature Summary* Reporting + Apply all slicers button, Clear all slicers button, and Optimization presets update + Format Pane – new styling + On-object interaction (Opt-in) + Visual container improvements * Data Connectivity + Google BigQuery, Google BigQuery Azure AD (Connector Update) + Azure Databricks, Databricks (Connector Update) + Dremio Cloud (Connector Update) + FactSet RMS (Connector Update) + SurveyMonkey (Connector Update) * Service + Storytelling in PowerPoint + Power BI org app Multiple Audiences + Announcing new Scanner API scenarios + Email Subscriptions * Mobile + Discover external orgs content in your mobile app + Grant access on the go * Visualizations (third-party visuals) + New visuals in AppSource + Financial Reporting Matrix v7.0 + Acterys Variance + Feature Summary for Drill Down Combo PRO + Gantt Chart by MAQ Software (PREMIUM)
The post Episode 250 – Power BI March 2023 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 249 recorded February 17th, 2023 where Jason talks to Patrick LeBlanc, Principal Program Manager on the Power BI CAT Team at Microsoft & a Guy in a Cube, about the February 2023 Power BI updates which include the Enhanced row-level security editor, Conditional Formatting based on string fields, new DAX functions, and Paginated Reports updates.
Show notesLinksGuy in a Cube: Guy in a Cube – YouTube
SQL Saturday ATL: SQL Saturday Atlanta 2023 – BI & Data Analytics Edition (#1042)
Laura Graham-Brown’s video: Power BI – Picture Slicer
February 2023 Power BI updatesReporting
- Conditional formatting based on string fields
- Smart Narrative visual summary icon
- Formatting image width in table and matrix
- Update your base theme in Power BI
- Report theme validation on custom theme import
- Text box visual indentation
- New accessible report themes
- Customize visible pages in the Page navigator visual
- Sensitivity labels now supported in PDF export from Desktop
- Enhanced row-level security editor
Analytics
- Quick Create SDK
Modeling
- New DAX functions: LINEST and LINESTX
Data Connectivity
- Denodo (Connector Update)
- Digital Construction Works Insights (Connector Update)
- Profisee (Connector Update)
- Cosmos DB V2 (Connector Update)
Service
- New ‘Get Data’ experience in the Power BI Service
- Compact view
- Linked metrics
- Follow metric
Paginated Reports
- Paginated Reports Formatted Table authoring experience
- Create a Paginated Report from a datamart
- Capacity Planning for Paginated Reports
Embedded
- TypeScript support in the playground developer sandbox
Visualizations (third party visuals)
- Editor’s pick of the quarter
- New visuals in AppSource
- Milestone Trend Analysis Chart by Nova Silva
- Multiple Sparklines
- Inforiver Charts 2.1 is now Microsoft Power BI certified
- accoPLANNING by Accobat
- Drill Down Donut PRO by ZoomCharts
The post Episode 249 – February 2023 Power BI updates appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 248 recorded on January 24th 2023, where John & Jason review the Microsoft Power BI 2023 release wave 1 plan that covers the roadmap from April to September of 2023.
Show NotesPremium1. Send unique report per recipient with paginated report email subscriptions 2. Automate migration from Azure Analysis Services to Power BI Premium 3. Balance user queries with query scale-out
Pro1. Navigate by workspaces in the data hub 2. Author calculation groups 3. Integrate Power BI into Teams meetings 4. Multi-task more easily in the Power BI app for Teams 5. Restrict access to content in the Power BI service using sensitivity labels 6. Navigate the model view using accessibility features 7. Enable Microsoft Purview DLP policies for Power BI datamarts 8. Control visual formatting with improved capabilities 9. Control visual formatting with improved capabilities 10. View Power BI files from the service within Power BI Desktop 11. Optimize presets in Power BI Desktop 12. Edit relationships in the properties pane 13. Combine existing mapping visuals into one with Azure Maps 14. Create and share paginated reports on the web
Dataflows1. Employ features from the next generation of Power BI dataflows
Power Query connectors1. SQL Server Analysis Services connector available in Power BI dataflows 2. Apply versioning fields and rich text columns in SharePoint Online List 3. Google Analytics Connector Update to use V4 Data API
Power Query Online1. Natural language interface to generate new Power Query steps 2. Split one query into multiple with conditional split 3. Choose from recommended data transformations
The post Episode 248 – Power BI 2023 release wave 1 plan appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 247 recorded January 20th 2023, where John & Jason interview Scott Sewell, Principal Program Manager on the CAT Team at Microsoft about Dataverse, Dynamics 365, and Power BI.
Show Noteshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mscottsewell
https://www.youtube.com/@MSFT_ScottSewell
Embedding Power BI into D365 and Power Apps Forms!
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/powerbi-modeling-guidance-for-power-platform
https://github.com/mscottsewell/Power-BI-Dynamics-365-Sales
Azure Synapse Link and Dataverse – Better Together
The post Episode 247 – Talking Dataverse with Scott Sewell appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 246 recorded January 9th, 2023 where John & Jason review their wins & losses with their 2022 predictions, and prognosticate about what they see happening in 2023.
2022 Predictions and scoresJason 4
- Creator experience starts the shift to online first, Power BI Desktop secondary 1
- Azure Synapse will continue to grow brand awareness and the Power BI brand will start to take more of a backseat 0
- The SharePoint Online Power BI v2.0 connector stays Beta for all of 2022 1
- Power BI continues it’s love affair with Microsoft Teams & Excel 1
- Power BI will finally get integration with Azure DevOps/GitHub 0
- Microsoft Ignite Spring 2022 will be another disappointment 1
John 3
- Clear return of In Person events – Microsoft events in the last half of the year 1
- Power Query gets a standalone client with multiple output types 0
- Deprecation of Azure Analysis Services 0
- Some sort of licensing that includes both Power BI and Synapse 0
- Web based dataset editor 1
- Quick Create report experience for Synapse 0
- New name for metamodels 1
2023 PredictionsJohn
- New product as a result of technical reorganization
- Power BI leaves the Power Platform
- Power BI Desktop “Lite” online report/ETL/dataset editor
- Paginated Report Editor Online
- Power Query standalone product (with premium connectors?)
- ChatGPT integrated into DAX editor a la Bing
Jason
- Kusto becomes more important to Power BI
- Office integration becomes tighter as Power BI rolls out with E5
- SharePoint & OneDrive become a much more interesting data source
- Microsoft 1st party events become more interesting from a Power BI perspective
- Paginated reports become more heavily adopted now that they are available in Pro
- We see the name Power start to drop away from top level product names
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This is episode 245 recorded on January 6th, 2023 where John & Jason do a year in review for all things Power BI in 2022.
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This is episode 244 recorded December 21st, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the news from November & December in the Power BI space including new cache refresh settings available in Power BI Premium, subscribe to a report with filters applied, Dataset refresh cancellation is now available in Power BI Premium, and more.
- New cache refresh settings available in Power BI Premium
- Announcing support for paginated reports in Power BI Pro
- Accelerate your migration experience from Azure Analysis Services to Power BI Premium with the automated migration tool
- Announcing: Enterprise scorecards with hierarchies and linked metrics in Power BI Metrics
- Subscribe to a report with filters applied
- Dataset refresh cancellation is now available in Power BI Premium
- Simplifying capacity management with unified v-cores
- Deep dive into Optimize ribbon and streamline your Power BI authoring
The post Episode 244 – News Wrap up for 2022 appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 243 recorded December 14th, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the December 2022 Power BI updates which include Slicer type formatting moved to Format Pane, making it easier to do comparison calculations, and Upcoming changes to the ‘Get Data’ experience in the Power BI Service.
Reporting
- Slicer type formatting moved to Format Pane
Modeling
- Making it easier to do comparison calculations
Data connectivity and preparation
- Anaplan (Connector update)
- Azure Databricks, Databricks (Connector update)
- CData Connect Cloud (New Connector)
- Cosmos DB V2 (New Connector)
- Dremio Cloud (Connector update)
- Google BigQuery (Azure AD) (New Connector)
Service
- Power BI org app Multiple Audiences will be generally available next year
- Announcing the deprecation of ‘Getting Started’ in the Expanded View of the Power BI Service
- Upcoming changes to the ‘Get Data’ experience in the Power BI Service
Mobile
- Track your Metrics on the Windows app
Developers
- Dynamically setting data chunk size
Visualizations
- New visuals in AppSource
- Update on Charticulator status
The post Episode 243 – Power BI December 2022 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 242 recorded November 23th, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the November 2022 Power BI updates which include New Power BI Color Accent, Create dynamic slicers using field parameters, New way to upload Power BI and Excel files, and Formatted Tables Authoring Experience updates.
Announcing New Power BI Color Accent
Reporting
- Unshared and unsynchronized axes for small multiples charts
- Controlling and customizing labels on Azure Maps
- Create dynamic slicers using field parameters
- Composite models over Power BI datasets and Analysis Services
Modeling
- Streamline your report authoring experience with the Optimize ribbon
- New DAX function: EVALUATEANDLOG
- New DAX functions: TOCSV and TOJSON
Data connectivity and preparation
- Azure Databricks, Databricks
- Dremio Cloud
- Kognitwin
- Spigit, Projectplace, Planview Enterprise One – PRM, Planview Enterprise One – CTM
- SumTotal
Service
- New way to upload Power BI and Excel files
- Subscribe to a report with filters applied
- Linked metrics
- Information protection update
Paginated Reports
- Formatted Table authoring experience
Visualizations
- New visuals in AppSource
- accoPLANNING by Accobat
- ADWISE RoadMap / Gantt v2.5
- Control Chart XmR by Nova Silva
- Zebra BI Cards 1.3
- ZoomCharts Drill Down Graph PRO
Other
- Power BI Desktop infrastructure update (WebView2)
The post Episode 242 – Power BI November 2022 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 241 recorded November 11th, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the big news from Microsoft about Paginated Reports now being available to Power BI Pro users, […]
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This is episode 240 recorded November 2nd, 2022 where Jason talks to Mohammad Ali, Principal Group Program Manager for the Creator Experiences in Power BI at Microsoft, about what his […]
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This is episode 239 recorded October 27th, 2022 where John & Jason cover the Power BI related news from the past few weeks including AAD-based filtration for Power BI Datamarts, […]
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This is episode 238 recorded October 20th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the October 2022 Power BI updates which include the new experimental Quick Measure Suggestions, Improved PBIX […]
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This is episode 237 recorded October 6th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the announcements made at Microsoft Ignite 2022 including Explore and interact with Power BI reports directly […]
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This is episode 236 recorded October 6th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the September 2022 Power BI updates which include Conditional formatting for data labels, Cross-Tenant Dataset Sharing, […]
The post Episode 236 – September 2022 Feature Summary appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
Show notes AvePoint Completes Acquisition of tyGraph to Accelerate Digital Workplace Success tyGraph for Microsoft 365 | AvePoint
The post Episode 235 – Interview with Ed Senez appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 234 recorded August 26th, 2022 where John & Jason talk to Alex Powers, Senior Program Manager on the Power BI CAT Team at Microsoft, about his journey […]
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This is episode 233 recorded August 12th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the August 2022 Power BI updates which include conditional formatting for data labels, mobile formatting now […]
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This is episode 232 recorded July 18th, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the Microsoft Power Platform: 2022 release wave 2 plan and go over the items specific to […]
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This is episode 231 recorded July 17th, 2022, where John & Jason go over the July 2022 Power BI updates which include Release Notes & Ideas Updates, Error Bars goes […]
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This is episode 230 recorded June 28th, 2022 where John & Jason talk to Priya Sathy, Group Program Manager in the Microsoft Intelligence Data Platform & the head of Product […]
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This is episode 229 recorded June 17th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the June 2022 Power BI updates which include Connect to Datamarts in preview, Power BI Data […]
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This is episode 228 recorded June 7th, 2022 where John & Jason review the Power BI news from the past several weeks including Analyze in Excel Workbooks are now saved […]
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Show Notes Top Line View – Sign up for the preview Get started with Power BI Metrics
The post Episode 227: Interview with Treb Gatte about Power BI metrics appeared first on BIFocal Podcast.
This is episode 226 recorded May 24th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the Power BI announcements from Microsoft Build 2022 such as changing from Power BI Goals to […]
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This is episode 225 recorded May 17th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the May 2022 Power BI updates which include field parameters, improvements to Power BI subscription management, […]
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This is episode 224 recorded live at 365EduCon in Seattle on May 13th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the April 2022 Power BI updates and an update on […]
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This is episode 223 recorded on April 6th, 2022 where John & Jason talk to Laura Rogers, Microsoft MVP and CEO of IWMentor.com, about the role of training in the […]
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This is episode 222 recorded on March 22nd, 2022 where John & Jason go over the March 2022 Power BI updates including Error Bars, Azure Maps visual getting to parity […]
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This is episode 221 recorded on March 10th, 2022 where John & Jason talk about the state of the world & do a deep dive on the work John has […]
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This is episode 220 recorded on February 24th, 2022 where John & Jason go over the February 2022 Power BI updates including new mobile formatting options, Dynamic M Query Parameters […]
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This is episode 219 recorded on February 18th, 2022 where John & Jason talk to Kelly Kaye, Community Program Manager for Power BI about a whole host of community related […]
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This is episode 218 recorded on January 28th, 2022 where John & Jason review the Microsoft Power BI 2022 release wave 1 plan that covers the roadmap from April to […]
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This is episode 217 recorded on December 23rd, 2021 where John & Jason do a year in review for all things Power BI in 2021, review their wins & losses […]
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Welcome back to the Power BI Beginner series. Today’s topic is “Setting up a Microsoft 365 Developer tenant” for getting started with Power BI. Now you may be thinking “Jason, […]
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If you prefer video format to reading this post, click here to go to my video about this topic: What type of account to use for Power BI – YouTube […]
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If you prefer video format to reading this post, click here to go to my video about this topic: https://youtu.be/I9JHIDe_7ww Happy 2022 y’all! At the end of 2021 John & […]
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This is episode 216 recorded on December 22nd, 2021 where John & Jason go over the December 2021 Power BI updates including Sparklines in Table & Matrix visuals, New Format […]
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This is episode 215 recorded on December 17th, 2021 where John & Jason talk to Kim Manis, Director of Product for Azure Synapse. Kim fills us in on what Synapse […]
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