Power BI Quarterly Blog Q2 2024

With Lytix we try to stay updated on the latest developments in Power BI and help our audience to do the same. That’s why we make a habit of posting the most interesting changes in the Power BI landscape every quarter. Below you can find the most interesting topics for the latest quarter.

General availability of Copilot

You can now ask Copilot in Power BI to take actions like “create a page where I can analyze the backlog of my tickets”. Based on your request, Copilot will then create a report page using the tables, fields and measures you have in your model. It will then choose the right charts that are relevant to your request. You can also select the “suggest topics” button to have Copilot recommend topics for reporting. Next to that you can ask Copilot to give you a summary of the data in the semantic model as well. Finally, the preview feature to summarize questions about the data is now made generally available.

More information on the Power BI Blog: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/the-general-availability-of-copilot-for-power-bi-is-rolling-out-starting-today/

The Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR)

The new Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) for Power BI Project Files (PBIP) is now available in preview mode for Power BI Developer mode. PBIR stores report metadata in separate, well-organized JSON files, which allows for better source control, making it easier to track changes, resolve conflicts, and enabling collaboration by improving development efficiency and supporting the co-development of Power BI reports. You will also have an enhanced source control experience when combining this with Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) for the semantic model.

To get started, activate the “Store reports using enhanced metadata format (PBIR)”via the preview features In Power BI Desktop. When enabled the report metadata will be stored In “definition” unlike PBIP where It’s stored in report.json format.

Existing PBIP reports can be upgraded to PBIR during the save operation, but this upgrade Is Irreversible. Its recommended to backup your PBIP files In case you want to go back.

It’s source control-friendly, the report metadata Is stored In JSON files that are properly formatted.

It has built-In IntelliSense and validation with the code editor VS Studio.

It Improves co-development. Each page, visual or bookmark Is In a separate file saved within a folder structure.  By saving your PBIP files In a Git repository using PBIR every change will be tracked. This allows you to easily resolve merge conflicts and keep track of all modifications that have been made.

With PBIR the development of PBI reports can greatly improve with batch edits. Eg. you can make batch edits by changing a visual property across all files. Or you can copy the bookmarks from one file to another.

There are some limitations…

Because this feature Is still In preview  the only way to publish a report with the PBIR format Is via a workspace that’s connected to a Git repository.

Other more or lesser limitations are:

• It cannot be exported to PPTX or PDF
• It cannot be published In the Power BI App
• It cannot be used In subscriptions
• It cannot be downloaded to PBIX

More information here.

Dax Query View

The DAX query view in Power BI is a powerful tool that allows users to interactively build and test Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) queries against their semantic models. This feature enables you to return data directly from the model, providing a hands-on way to analyze and understand your data. With Copilot integrated in the DAX query view, writing measures becomes a LOT easier. Copilot can assist in generating complex DAX formulas by understanding your prompts and translating them into accurate DAX code to streamline the process. The DAX Query View and Copilot together create a powerful setup for data analysis.
Using the optional DEFINE statement in DAX, you can create new measures which are DAX query scoped. DAX query scoped measures can be added to the model using CodeLens update model actions or the “Update model with changes” button.
With the ribbon you have the choice to format the query, comment, uncomment, find & replace parts of your query and open the Command palette.
This Command palette allows you to search for additional DAX query actions and see which keyboard shortcut you could use.

You can find an extensive explanation of all the components in the Microsoft documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/dax-query-view

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