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ANALYTICS
Velocity5.0

Business analytics service by Microsoft

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Power BI's monthly grind: authoring defaults, DAX documentation, and mobile finally catching up.

business-intelligencereportingdaxdata-visualizationmobileauthoring-defaults
◆Current state
Power BI ships on a monthly cadence where each release is a long list of small, independently useful changes rather than a headline feature. The current batch runs from report-wide theme customization and DAX measure descriptions written as triple-slash comments, through matrix expand and collapse reaching general availability, to the mobile apps gaining Excel export and one-tap layout rotation. Nothing here redirects the product; all of it removes a specific piece of manual work.
◆Where it's heading
The through-line is moving decisions from repetition to defaults. Theme customization sets report-wide visual defaults and exports them for reuse or for organizational themes; matrix row-header freeze becomes a saved authoring choice rather than a per-session right-click; measure documentation lives inside the DAX rather than in a separate step. A second, quieter thread is mobile parity — exporting to Excel with filters, slicers, drill state and row-level security intact is the kind of gap that kept people on the desktop. The formatting long tail continues in parallel, mostly axis, padding, and slicer styling controls.
◆Prediction
Expect the preview features in this window — modern visual defaults and theme customization — to move toward general availability, and the formatting pane to keep absorbing controls that were previously theme-file edits.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1mo ago

    Power BI embedding in SharePoint adds single-visual mode

    SharePoint Online embedding gets a workspace picker instead of requiring a copied URL, and a toggle to embed a single visual rather than a whole report. Both reduce setup friction for the most common way Power BI content reaches people who never open Power BI. Note this item was captured twice in the feed.

  2. 1mo ago

    DAX measure descriptions via triple-slash comments

    Measure descriptions can be written as /// comments above a MEASURE definition in DAX query view, using TMDL's syntax, and pushed into the model with Update model with changes. The descriptions then surface in tooltips across DAX query view, Model Explorer and the Data pane — documentation written where the code is rather than in a separate pass.

  3. 1mo ago

    Customize current theme sets report-wide visual defaults

    Modern Visual Defaults gains a Customize current theme experience in the Format pane, setting report-wide defaults for visual backgrounds, borders, header icons, tooltips and shadows, plus page size and wallpaper across all pages at once. The result exports as a theme for reuse elsewhere or as an organizational theme. Still preview.

  4. 4mo ago

    ZoomCharts Drill Down Waterfall PRO adds automatic subtotals

    An AppSource listing for a third-party ZoomCharts visual, not a change to Power BI itself. Its automatic subtotal detection is only available to customers of that vendor's paid visual.

  5. 4mo ago

    Preview visuals now labeled in the Visualizations pane

    Preview visuals are now labelled (preview) in the Visualizations pane and grouped below the divider with custom and unpinned visuals. A labelling change that makes the preview boundary visible where authors pick visuals.

  6. 4mo ago

    Bar and column charts get Rounded range axis control

    A Rounded range option removes the axis padding that left bar and column charts starting away from the data, and adding data labels no longer shifts the axis range underneath you. Small, but it removes two long-standing reasons authors fought the axis.