Overwhelmed by constant Power BI updates?

Keeping up with the constant stream of new features, performance enhancements, and changes can be challenging for any Power BI developer. But ignoring these updates could put you at a competitive disadvantage.

Let's discover and learn about the latest features to streamline your workflow and stay ahead of the competition.

Adapting to changes in Excel workbook support

Starting September 29, 2023, Power BI will no longer allow the upload of local Excel workbooks to Power BI workspaces. Additionally, configuring scheduling of refresh and refresh now for Excel files will be restricted. By October 31, 2023, even existing Excel files with scheduled refresh will lose this functionality.

Key points:

• Deprecation dates: September 29, 2023, for new uploads and October 31, 2023, for existing scheduled refreshes.

• Recommended actions: republish local workbooks using SharePoint or OneDrive for Business or publish the Excel data model as a Power BI dataset.

• Ongoing support: you can still upload Excel workbooks from OneDrive or SharePoint and continue to publish Excel models as Power BI datasets.

Learn more about automatic scaling for dataset scale-out

Power BI latest updates

The latest update of Power BI is packed with features that can significantly enhance your data analytics and visualization capabilities. From layout switchers to new data connectivity options, this update is not one to overlook.

Key points:

• Layout switcher: this new feature allows you to easily toggle between different report layouts, providing a more dynamic user experience.

• ORDERBY function updates: enhancements to the ORDERBY function offer more flexibility in sorting data, including multi-level sorting capabilities.

• Modern data connectivity in dataflows: this update introduces new connectors and improved data source management, making it easier to integrate various data sources.

• XMLA write support for Direct Lake datasets: you can now write back to Direct Lake datasets using XMLA endpoints, opening up new possibilities for data manipulation and analysis.

Explore the full feature list of Power BI August 2023 update