There has been a lot of updates that have happened this past week. Loads of goodness especially in Power BI, so read all the details below.

Power BI – Enterprise Gateway

There has been an updated release for the Enterprise Gateway for Power BI. And I have to say that this has come leaps and bounds in a very short space of time.

And today to my great delight it was so great to see how simple it really is to use.

As with the above screenshot I had created my reports using Power BI Desktop, and then was using the Personal Gateway to update the data. But because it was coming from a SQL Server I initially could not use the Enterprise Gateway.

With the latest releases you can now use the Enterprise Gateway to also use the scheduled refresh for SQL Server sources, amounts many additional sources. So all I did was go into my dataset, then look under the Gateway connection and it had the option to select which gateway I wanted to use.

So simple and yet so powerful at the same time. I had to make no change to my report or connections. That is really amazing.

It is also great to see that it does this for Web URL’s, Files and Folders on Premise also

You can read about it all here: Power BI Gateway – February Update

Power BI – Desktop Update for February

This is a massive Power BI Desktop Update, and as I have done in the past I am going to highlight what I feel is really great.

The first thing to highlight is the ability to see the data behind the visual. To me this is amazing to now have this as part of the Power BI Desktop and part of the report. The reason being is that I have thought that Power BI is an amazing visual application. But where it was at times lacking was what functionality and ability that you had using Excel. Where you could get the visuals but also if required to see the underlying data.

Now with this new update, it begins to open the door to make this happen.

Next is the new KPI that they have created. This is very similar to some of the other KPI visuals, but the thing that I like about this is that from the get go, a lot of people have been asking for KPIs, and often sighting that it was something that was missing from the product. With the ability to navigate folders and all the properties of the KPI I think this is a welcome addition.

The above image is not the best, but if you can squint your eyes you can see that there now is the ability to create your Own Hierarchy in your Power BI model. This is really great, because sometimes for certain reasons (Getting data from the Web, or CSV Files) you did not have the hierarchy that you needed. Now you can do it quickly and easily.

There are a whole host of updates, as well as connectors, additional content packs etc. in this release.

If you want to read up all about the updates here is the link: Power BI Update: Lots of new authoring features and a new Power BI Desktop update

Power BI – Mobile App Update

There have been some additional updates once again to the Power BI Mobile App, and it is great to see that they have continued to add the functionality to the additional platforms. Whilst mostly on Windows 10, I have no doubt that it will be added to the other platforms if not there already.

You can read up about it here: Power BI Mobile Apps Update – February 2016

Power BI – Dynamics AX 7 Content Pack

Once again another content pack, this time it is the Dynamics AX Content pack. Which delivers some great insights into your AX data.

They have created to content packs, one for Financial Performance and another for Retail. It is great to see these out of the box style reports, which will help a lot of organizations using AX 7.

You can find out more details here: Explore your Microsoft Dynamics AX data with Power BI

Power BI – Azure Security Center Content Pack

The content pack guys must have been really busy in the past because this is the 3rd content pack release this week. And this time it is to do with the Azure Security Center data.

This gives you the ability to be able to analyze your security for all your Azure resources. And be able to trend and see what is happening over time.

You can read more information about it here: Analyze your Azure Security Center data with Power BI

Power BI – New Visuals


The above two visuals are the Long Text Viewer and Image Viewer respectively.

And the Long Text viewer just gives you the ability to be able to put a whole stack of text into your Power BI report. Which is sometimes required.

The Image viewer is a simple data bound image. So that you can use it to simply show images based on your selection.

You can view them in the visuals gallery: Welcome to Power BI custom visuals

SQL 2016 – Data Driven Event – Hear from the Engineers

As you can see from above there is the Data Driven event happening where you will have the ability to hear from the Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and their customers on how data insights are ensuring that their business is ahead of their competitors.

You will also have the ability to listen and understand first hand from the Microsoft Engineers that helped build the product.

You can find out and register with more details here: Data Driven

Excel 2016 – Funnel Chart

It appears that this one slipped through the cracks. With all the focus on Power BI and SQL Server 2016, there was an update to Excel. And they now have a new visual for the Funnel. Whilst this has been in SSRS and even more recently in Power BI, it is great to see that it is now in Excel.

You can find out about this updates and other updates here: February Office 365 updates