Massive Power BI Update - Special Edition _ The Weekly Roundup

Relational Database Analytics and Uncovering Actionable Insights with Power BI

In today's data-driven world, many businesses rely on centrally governed data sources built by professional developers. However, this can lead to drawbacks such as delayed reporting and analysis, and users resorting to building their own data models using tools like Access, SharePoint, or spreadsheets. These solutions lack important capabilities, perform poorly, don't scale with growing data volumes and user base, and can be challenging to govern.

The latest update to Power BI aims to address these problems by giving users more hands-on freedom and independence in building the data they need for reports. With this out-of-the-box tool, users can extract information from different sources or a data warehouse, transform and load it into something specific for their own use. This allows even non-technical users to create custom dashboards and visualizations, regardless of their experience with SQL.

This feature update will definitely help overburdened IT teams with smaller tasks such as combining two data sources or cleaning up a data source. By providing users with more freedom and independence, Power BI enables them to work on these tasks quickly, without having to rely on the development team. This means that reporting and analysis can be done faster, and users can get the insights they need sooner.

To use this feature effectively, analysts will need to learn some new skills. They will still require certain information from their IT department or database administrators to connect to different data sources. Microsoft has a wealth of documentation and resources available, including Data Camp's courses in their Power BI Data Analyst Track, which provide more information on how to connect to various data sources.

Another exciting feature announced is the Metrics feature, previously known as Goals. This feature aims to make business scorecarding and benchmarking easier and more intuitive. One of the most highly anticipated capabilities is the ability to create cascading scorecards that roll up along hierarchies in your data. This new "Hierarchies" feature enables users to set up a hierarchy for a scorecard and map the Power BI datasets referenced by Metrics in the scorecard to the hierarchy.

This means that metrics being tracked can be directly connected to categorical values, such as grades or compliance ratings, which are not numerical. Similarly, survey results can be based on categories like "Highly Satisfied" to "Zero Highly Unsatisfied". The new Metrics feature allows users to create Matrix reports to track these categorical values.

For businesses adopting this feature, it will provide a wealth of value and is an exciting development for companies looking to implement OKR planning. By integrating Power BI with their existing Office 365 setup, teams can easily communicate analysis from Power BI through emails and chats, and even add Power BI content to Outlook emails as adaptive cards.

Finally, the Power BI Personal App will be integrated into the Office Hub, enabling users to find, consume, and create Power BI content directly within Outlook. When an email contains Power BI content, it will open in Outlook, allowing users to access Power BI without switching apps. This integration is a significant development that makes it easier for teams to work with Power BI within their existing workflow.

Conclusion

The latest update to Power BI has brought several exciting features that aim to make data analysis and visualization more intuitive and accessible. By giving users more freedom and independence in building the data they need, Power BI enables them to work more efficiently and effectively. The integration with Office Hub and Outlook will further enhance the user experience, making it easier for teams to communicate and collaborate with Power BI insights.

Overall, this update is a significant development that can help businesses unlock the full potential of their data. With its capabilities in metrics, hierarchies, and integrations, Power BI is poised to become an essential tool for data analysis and visualization in the years to come.