Power BI – What new features has Microsoft given us in March 2021

By Scott Bryson, BI Developer, CSL

Power BI Update

Overview

Microsoft has recently released their March 2021 round of updates in-line with their monthly release schedule. Below I have pulled some of the more interesting points from this release.

Just remember to enable any preview features in Power BI desktop settings.

Lots of the updates this month are preview only features so you won’t see them unless you have done this step.

Something before we begin:

Windows 7 Deprecation

If you’re a Windows 7 user, it’s important to note that Power BI Desktop stopped supporting Windows 7 on January 31st 2021. Power BI Desktop is now only supported on Windows 8.1 or newer versions of Windows, and as always for only the newest release of Power BI Desktop.

Here are the highlights

Reporting

Advanced Data Selection in Azure Maps Visual

The Azure maps visual is still relatively new to Power BI so I expect to see many more new features as the visual ramps up. This month Microsoft have added some new selection controls. There are 4 ways to interact now:

Range Selection

This one will be useful for trying to see distance from a point. Maybe you are a delivery company and want to see how far you could deliver in a time period?

Radial selection

Useful for selecting all points from a central point – again useful for calculating an area which could / needs to be covered!

Box selection

Similar to the radial selection but useful when you want to highlight a specific area on the map to drill into.

Polygon selection

This is useful if you want to be very specific from a mapping perspective, maybe you are close to the coast and you need to calculate time more accurately.

Analytics

X axis constant line for line charts

This one has been something that has been possible via a complicated workaround for a while but now is available out of the box. Adding a constant line or point of interest is now available.

Data connectivity

Updated certified connectors

There are updates being released to the following nine certified connectors:

  • Exasol
  • Automation Anywhere
  • Zoho Creator
  • e-Way CRM
  • IntelligentPlant
  • Data Virtuality
  • Vena
  • FactSet
  • MariaDB

Visualizations

New Visualizations

New this month are:

As is usually the case with the added visuals, these are from third party companies and may come with an additional charge for usage.

To Wrap It Up

For a full list, including any feature I did not touch on, here’s the official announcement

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-march-2021-feature-summary/

For support in getting the most out of Power BI, please call us on 01483 528302 or email info@csl-uk.com, or read more about how our Power BI experts can support you here.

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