There have been a range of significant updates made to Power BI throughout the year and December has been no different, with Microsoft looking to end 2019 in style.
Each month, we have been keeping you up to date with the biggest and most important monthly changes, as Power BI continues to strengthen its position as an industry-leading analytics tool.
Rather than introducing new features unnecessarily, Power BI has built a strong reputation for listening carefully to customer feedback, delivering updates that address existing issues within the community.
December’s updates cover various key areas, including reporting, analytics, visualisations, data connectivity, data preparation and template apps, with new theming options amongst the most popular improvements.
Customise current theme
One of the biggest appeals of using Power BI is the customisation available to users, providing them with the creative freedom needed to develop engaging reports.
As part of the theming updates introduced this month, users no longer have to write or modify a JSON file to customise the most common options of their current theme, as this can now be accessed through a dialogue in the Power BI desktop.
Once the feature has been enabled, the new theming dialogue will begin after selecting ‘customise theme option’, which has been pre-populated with the settings from your current theme.
The customisable settings have been split into separate categories, allowing users to find a specific setting with ease. These include name and colours, visuals, page and filter pane.
From here, it’s possible to adjust the individual settings as you please, before saving them back to the original report for future use.


Power Platform Dataflows connector
Regular readers of our blog will know how highly we regard Microsoft’s Power Platform, as it allows our clients to unlock the power of various applications by integrating them into one service offering.
In recent years, one of the most exciting additions to the Power Platform has been Dataflows, which enables self-service data preparation and the reusability of data for users across Power BI, Power Apps and the rest of the Power Platform.
With the introduction of the Dataflows connector, users can now create reports in Power BI on top of Dataflows created from Power Apps environments.
Accessed via the Power Platform category of the Get Data dialogue, the new ability is designed for users who work inside Power Apps and have dataflows they want to leverage inside Power BI.
From our perspective, it’s another clear indication that Microsoft is doing all they can to enhance collaboration between their different services and platforms.
Hierarchy Tree
A Power BI update cycle wouldn’t be complete without a range of exciting new visuals, allowing users to clearly display important information and insights within their reports.
Produced by xViz, the Hierarchy Tree lets users display data in a tree view, in a similar layout to the highly requested Decomposition Tree that was released last month.
However, this visual allows users to compare specific measures, using the pan and zoom control to navigate around the visual and search for nodes using the search bar when the tree is vast.
Of course, the tree can be customised and formatted to meet the needs of the user, recolouring connector lines and adding values where necessary.
xViz have also released a number of other exciting visuals this month, offering the perfect festive gift for Power BI’s most loyal users.


New Year, new you…
It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2019, as the start of a new decade awaits.
For businesses, it’s an opportunity to create some of their own New Year’s resolutions, implementing technology and infrastructure that will deliver better results for clients and customers.
Instead of collecting masses of data without any purpose, Power BI will allow you to transform this information into important insights that will help your business grow.
Once you have analysed the data at your disposal, then you can spot emerging trends that will unlock new opportunities for your business to benefit from.
If you’d like more information on the available solutions, contact our in-house team and head into 2020 with a new proactive energy.