The latest update to Power BI Desktop sees changes in several areas. There will now be a new modern ribbon that enhances functionality and supports Power BI desktop with Office. The most in-demand Decomposition Tree request has been included in this update. Power Query now has AI functions incorporated into it, which means data transformation gets a boost. Here’s a quick look at some key highlights of the latest updates and what they mean when it comes to monitoring business growth.

Dynamic Analyses with Decomposition Tree Visuals

This long standing request has finally been brought in. How does it work to your benefit? You can use a decomposition tree for root-cause analysis. This means that you can now see how individual categories within a group makes a difference. The visual will essentially let you break down a group into individual components. These can be ranked according to a measure of your choice. You have two tabs – Analyse, which takes in the numeric field you want to decompose and ‘Explain By’, where you include all the aspects that you want the numeric field to be broken down by. The added advantage is the fact that you can dynamically input which fields in the ‘Explain By’ field you want to examine, and even the order in which you want to do. This helps in breaking down understanding into individual buckets, ensuring that you can take action on a specific element.

Easy Building of Financial reports with Enhanced Features

The Financial Reporting matrix is a custom visual that sets the base for calculations and conditional formatting to help you create matrix reports. The advantage is the inclusion of features that don’t usually appear with a matrix visual, such as line and conditional formatting and subtotals among other features. The data model now allows you to custom calculate lines as well as custom format any specifications you have. This model gives you a clear way to achieve project objectives. It makes for an efficient use of limited manpower. There is also a rapid flow of information across segments throughout the project.

Enhanced Q&A Experience for Better Interactivity

There have been several improvements to the Q&A segment of Power BI. Here is a look at some of them and their advantages to a business:

• In order to help you know which terms are understood and which are not in your data model, words are highlighted in blue or red respectively. You can work on clarifying or adding in new meanings.
• No more worries about dealing with disconnected tables. The new update allows you to automatically manage disconnected measure tables – and quickly associate which measures go with which dimensions. This completely eliminates the need for a separate data model for Q&A, saving on precious man hours.
• The newly introduced tooling preview will allow you to look at how people are making use of the Q&A visual and help you improve on the results they achieve. You can examine specific questions and answer them, input terms that Power BI highlights, assist in making Q&A address ambiguous questions and also input custom definitions where needed.
• Perhaps the most important is the fact that Power BI now supports SQL Server Analysis Services and Azure Analysis services along with Q&A. This can be done without data being imported into Power BI.

Data Profiling Gets a Boost

Data profiling abilities within the Power Query Editor are now enhanced with a few capabilities. You can now avail of multiple grouping options for the column profile pane visual. This can now be specific to column type. This is in addition to the By Value criteria.

Report Creators Can Access Streamlined Data with .PBIDS, New File Format

In this latest release comes a new file format, .PBIDS. Those making reports can open a .PBIDS file and will be instantly prompted, once authenticated, to connect to a required data source. With the help of a dialog box that pops up, the user will be able to select tables that can be brought into the model. Recent sources can be revisited to build visualisations or to create a new set of tables in the model.

Read more: Why PowerBI makes for a Great Asset to your Enterprise

There is also an improvement in the Analysis Services engine that will now help with speeding up modelling operations. This is in cases where there are a lot of calculations; the use of UserRelationship or CrossFilter functions as well as the use of Today, Now, Random and other such volatile functions. Under test conditions this has shown to have around 20X improvement in performance.

To know more, connect with our Power BI team at Suyati – [email protected]

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