The last update for the year provides two long-awaited features available in Preview: small multiples, and DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Azure Analysis Services.

There was more though.

Data protection sensitivity labels also make their debut in Power BI Desktop and there is a new Home List experience for Power BI Service. With holiday season about to go into full swing, do note there will apparently be no updates in January – totally understandable given the volume released usually!

Here is this month’s list of updates:

Reporting

• DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Azure Analysis Services (Preview)
• Small multiples (Preview)
• Data protection sensitivity labels in Power BI Desktop (Preview)
• Increased rectangle select data point limit
• Selection pane is now available in the Mobile Layout view
• Automatic page refresh for Analysis Services sources

Data Preparation

• Recent changes to Power Query and Dataflows

Data Connectivity

• Microsoft Dataverse Connector
• Azure Time Series Insights Update
• SurveyMonkey Update
• Cognite Update

Service

• Power BI Search in Microsoft Search in Bing and Office now Generally Available
• Home List experience
• Custom publish message
• New export settings are available in the Power BI admin portal
• Power BI Premium per user public Preview now available
• Quickly create reports in the Service (coming soon)

Mobile

• Dark mode support in the Power BI Android app
• Anomaly detection is now supported in all mobile apps (iOS, Android and Windows)

Embedded

• New look for Embedded scenarios
• New capabilities in embedding for your organisation
• Personalize visuals experience now fully supported on embedded scenarios
• New Q&A embed experience
• Power BI APIs & Life-Cycle Management

Visualisations

• New visuals

Template Apps

• Test Your Analytics Maturity
• Apps on AppSource
• Power BI Gold suite

Developers

• New Admin APIs and Service Principal authentication to make for better tenant metadata scanning
• Power BI Visuals Platform adds support for conditional formatting.

As always, we'll be detailing these updates in our January newsletter. Please remember we have virtual / online training in Power BI which you can find out more about here. If you are not already a subscriber, why not sign up at the bottom of any SumProduct web page? And don't forget to download the latest version of Power BI Desktop here too.