The Top 5 Power BI Updates of 2022 So Far

Microsoft Power BI is a versatile software platform that allows businesses to gain valuable insights from amalgamated data to strengthen ongoing decision-making.  

Using Power BI, you can create graphical data reports and interactive dashboards that provide your team with the information they need to better interpret insights from data sets using a visual medium. 

Power BI has had several updates in 2022 

As a highly popular and well-supported platform, Power BI regularly receives updates and changes to improve its capabilities. However, some business users may overlook these updates or not understand how to utilise them effectively. 

This is unfortunate, as these updates enhance usability, save time, improve efficiencies and most importantly, allow businesses to better leverage the power of data. 

At White Box, we use Power BI regularly, both for our own company and all of our clients. As we’re highly familiar with the platform, we wanted to share our top 5 Power BI updates from January to May 2022, which are: 

1. Page and bookmark navigator 

2. Sparklines 

3. New formatting pane  

4. Tooltip for drill through matrix, line & area charts  

5. Canvas Zoom 

Here’s what each Power BI update is and how to put them to good use. 

1. Page and bookmark navigator 

Before the update, setting up a page and bookmark navigation in Power BI took a lot of time because it required Developers to build and set up each individual button for every page and then duplicate each button on all of the pages.  

Thankfully, the new update addresses this by providing a ‘new page and bookmark navigators’ option to quickly set up pages and buttons fast, saving hours of manual effort. 

To access this ‘new page and bookmark navigator’ option, go to the Insert menu > Buttons > Navigator (as seen below). 

Once you choose the page or bookmark navigation, reports will automatically create horizontal buttons for all the pages with page names and set actions on them. So much easier!  

Definitely try this one out. 

2. Sparklines 

Sparklines are small line charts within the cells of table or matrix visuals, making it much easier to spot the trends quickly alongside the numbers. It is particularly useful to show trends such as increases/decreases, yearly/monthly values and highlighting minimum/maximum values.  

The Sparklines feature is currently in preview mode (see image below). 

To access the Sparkline feature, open the file menu from the menu bar and select > options and setting > options > Preview features and then enable the Sparklines feature. 

Once the sparkline preview feature is enabled, you will be able to add sparklines into your table and matrix visuals – see the example below. 

A demonstration of Power BI’s new Sparklines feature 

Start by creating a table or matrix with dimensions and numeric values. In this example, below, we have added ‘product category’ as a dimension and ‘revenue’ as a value. To add sparklines in this table, select the down arrow button on revenue then select ‘Add a sparkline’ as shown in the below image. 

Once we select to add a sparkline on the revenue column, it will open the sparkline dialogue box and allow you to configure the details. As we can see in the image, the Y-axis is prepopulated with the Revenue field as per the requirement – this can be changed if you select a different field.  

The sparkline also requires an X-axis field such as the Date column. In this example, we added the Month & Year date column. 

Once you create a sparkline, it will automatically add to the table or matrix visual as a new column.  

As you can see, it’s now easier to visually spot trends from the numbers, based on the selected parameters.  

You can always edit your sparkline’s properties going forward, as needed. 

Simply use the sparklines formatting option in the formatting pane to modify line colour and width. Also, you can add a marker and change the colour to highlight attributes like the highest and lowest, etc.  

There are some limitations of this feature to be aware of: 

• Power BI supports up to 5 sparklines per visual 

• It also displays 52 points per sparkline 

• When the sparklines are in the table or matrix, the number of columns in a table is also limited to 20 columns. 

3. New formatting pane  

There was a lot of feedback posted on the Microsoft community group regarding the formatting pane and how many additional clicks were required to find certain settings. Now, the context menu expands out to cover all categories and sub-categories for a far better user experience.  

While this is not a major change, it does make a significant difference in terms of accessibility and ease of use. 

4. Tooltip for drill through matrix, line & area charts 

This recent Power BI update allows users to drill through or drill down directly from the tooltip, providing greater convenience and a more streamlined use – see the image below. 

This added functionality is applicable currently to specific charts, including Matrix, Area charts, Line charts and Stacked Area charts. 

5. Canvas Zoom 

Canvas zoom is a new Power BI feature that was introduced in the May 2022 update.  

Now, users can easily zoom into the reports and canvas, providing a significantly improved reading experience. This feature allows Power BI developers to zoom in and make the required changes more easily.  

Users can simply set the zoom with ‘customize% values’ or drag the sliding button to increase/decrease the zoom, as shown below. There is also a button to return back to the default view called fit to page. 

Have you tried out these new 2022 Power BI updates? 

We trust you found this quick update summary useful to get more out of your Power BI platform.  

Updates such as these occur regularly to enhance its useability, which is why it’s important to keep up to date so you get the most from Power BI and your business data. 

If you need any help or would like to get more out of Power BI to improve your business and leverage the power of your data, our team of data specialists at White Box can help you.  

We can help you make data-driven decisions with user-friendly dashboards 

White Box is highly experienced in providing data strategy, data science and data visualisation solutions. 

As your Power BI consultant, we’ll help you to realise the full potential of your data and maximise your business success through advanced and innovative dashboards that make all the difference. 

Get in touch today for your free data strategy consultation.

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