August shifts BI work toward governed self-service: analysts can target refreshes, standardize report design, work in project files, and use…
August shifts BI work toward governed self-service: analysts can target refreshes, standardize report design, work in project files, and use AI/data-platform capabilities under stronger access controls. The role increasingly combines semantic-model stewardship, reproducible development, and operational judgment—not just dashboard assembly.
Deprecation of old file picker experience in Power BI Desktop
What changed
- Update desktop runbooks and file-handling automation before the old OneDrive and SharePoint picker behavior is retired.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Updates to required semantic model permissions for Fabric Apps
What changed
- Audit app audiences and semantic-model roles so consumers receive Read access without retaining unnecessary Build access.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Copilot Summary and Copilot Narrative can now read visuals hidden behind bookmarks
What changed
- Test Copilot output across every display-only bookmark state and confirm RLS and OLS behavior remains intact.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Modern visual defaults and customize themes formatting panes (Generally Available)
What changed
- Review report templates and theme JSON against Fluent 2 defaults, then validate the resulting formatting on representative visuals.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Date picker for Slicer visual (Generally Available)
What changed
- Use relative, single-date, and manual range modes deliberately, then verify the filter context used by downstream measures.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Center value for donut chart (Generally Available)
What changed
- Use the center value for a primary KPI and check its formatting, filtering, cross-highlighting, and small-screen behavior.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Comments support for reports in org apps
What changed
- Add the org-app comment surface to collaboration and support workflows so feedback is captured in the consumer context.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Matrix: Expand and collapse for column headers (Generally Available)
What changed
- Use column hierarchy controls to reduce matrix density while testing keyboard navigation and the saved report state.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Matrix: Set the default freeze state for row headers in the format pane
What changed
- Set and test the saved row-header freeze default in wide matrices while preserving transient right-click behavior.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
OneLake file URLs for report visuals and maps (Generally Available)
What changed
- Use authenticated OneLake URLs for supported image and map surfaces, and verify viewer permissions plus fallback imagery.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Outer padding for bar, column, line, ribbon, and waterfall charts (Generally Available)
What changed
- Set outer padding explicitly in reusable report templates and test the visual edge spacing at different category densities.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Azure Maps reference layer shape-matching improvements (Generally Available)
What changed
- Re-test reference-layer reports with representative geography volumes and confirm faster matching preserves the intended spatial interpretation.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Azure Maps loads filtered selection and autozoom (Generally Available)
What changed
- Add filtered-selection and autozoom cases to map regression checks so navigation remains predictable after slicer changes.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Slicer visual dropdown border color, open icon, and hierarchy expand and collapse icon colors (Generally Available)
What changed
- Standardize dropdown and hierarchy icon formatting in report templates so selection depth and filter state remain clear.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
More control over semantic model refresh in Power BI Service
What changed
- Use schema-and-data, schema-only, data-only, and table-level refresh deliberately in validation and operational runbooks.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Direct Lake calculated columns (Preview)
What changed
- Test DAX calculated columns on representative Direct Lake models and validate query-time evaluation and user-context behavior.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Theming improvements for better accessibility
What changed
- Include Power Query light and dark themes in authoring-tool accessibility checks, not only in published report reviews.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Better contrast for connector icons in Dark Mode
What changed
- Verify connector icons remain legible in dark-mode data-source flows and include the state in desktop regression coverage.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Rotate view in the mobile report footer
What changed
- Test portrait-to-landscape transitions on iOS and Android while preserving report interactions and filter state.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Export data to Excel in the Power BI mobile app
What changed
- Treat mobile export as a governed handoff: verify permissions, filters, row-level security, and workbook readability.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Enhancements to Power BI embedding in SharePoint Online
What changed
- Test workspace selection and single-visual embeds separately from full-report embeds because their navigation and governance paths differ.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Faster PBIP development with instant reloads and VS Code integration
What changed
- Edit PBIP files with external tools, apply the one-click reload in Desktop, and review the project diff before committing.
Why it matters
The card preserves the official section, availability state, and developer-facing implication.
Conclusion
Validate availability and tenant scope against the linked official Microsoft section.