Microsoft 365 monthly update – May 2022

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The Microsoft 365 monthly update includes updates and recently recent features across all of Microsoft 365. Press a button to read about an individual technology or continue reading for more. You can take a look back at previous monthly updates here, plus take a look at our weekly roadmap roundup.

SharePoint
Teams
OneDrive
Power Apps
Power Automate
Power BI

SharePoint

In SharePoint: Site template history panel, page section templates, calendar view item drag and drop, Mover.io to be retired, view & edit video/ file info in Stream, Inspiration Library in Microsoft Viva Insights

SharePoint site template history panel

The site template history panel is new to site settings for site owners to view the history of any site templates applied to their site, along with the ability to review related site script actions. Site owners simply go to the Site information panel and then select View template history.

Click into Site information and then click “View template history” to view all templates that have been applied to your site.

Section templates for pages and news

Authors of SharePoint Pages and News will now be able to access section templates from the plus menu in a new tab next to the sections tab. Users will be able to choose and add templates at the section level instead of just at the page level. Although users will still have access to blank sections, there are six templates to make section design easier and faster.

When adding a new section to your SharePoint page or news article, you can now use predefined section templates to save time and better organize your posts.

Find out more: Make designing SharePoint pages easier with section templates

Microsoft Lists: Calendar view item drag and drop

Now it’s easy to reorganize list items in a calendar view. Users will be able to reschedule items – changing the date – by dragging and dropping them from one day to another, or by pulling an item from the ‘Unscheduled’ pane that appears on the right, within Calendar view.

Easily drag and drop list items when in Calendar view. Moving items updates the Date column to the date you drag to.

Mover.io legacy website to be retired

On July 1st, 2022, Microsoft will be retiring the legacy Mover tool’s ability to migrate from Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and Egnyte. If you are currently in the middle of a Mover migration, you may continue using Mover until you finish your migration. However, you will not be able to create new moves. FastTrack led migrations are not impacted at this time.

The Microsoft Migration Manager now has the ability to move files and folders from third-party storage providers into Microsoft 365. This is Microsoft’s recommended tool for file migrations to OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.

Find out more: Mover.io retirement timeline

View and edit of video and/or audio file information in Stream

Now it’s even easier to adjust things like title, description, and thumbnails for people who have owner permissions for a video or audio file.

  • About will enable users, with edit permissions, to add and edit a title/description on their video or audio file. Viewers will be able to see this information along with non-editable fields like upload date, owner name, filename, and area path.
  • Custom thumbnail, located in Video Settings, will allow users with edit permissions to change the default thumbnail by uploading an image or selecting a frame from the video. This custom thumbnail will be used throughout Microsoft 365.
You can also add and/or update the thumbnail of a video or audio file.

Find out more: Current features and upcoming roadmap for Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint)

Inspiration Library in Microsoft Viva Insights

The Inspiration library is a new feature available in preview through the Viva Insights app in Teams. It turns insights into action with access to curated content and best practices from top sources like Harvard Business Review and Thrive.

The Inspiration library turns insights into action with access to curated content and best practices from top sources like Harvard Business Review and Thrive.

Find out more: 3 ways to meet new hybrid expectations with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365

Teams

In Teams: Choose your own status for a meeting, Mandatory Comments for Approvals App, Data export within Approvals App, additional language support for suggested replies, Together mode for everyone, brightness/ soft-focus video filters, VDI improvements, Direct Guest Join for Teams Rooms on Android, Horizontal participant gallery, enhancements to app usage report/ activity log

Government
Education
Front line workers

Choose your own status for a meeting

Organizers and participants of Teams meetings can choose a Calendar Show As status feature such as free, busy, or OOF to reflect their status for scheduled meetings. In addition, organizers can select private meeting functionality, which will allow users to hide meeting details from other users when their calendar is shared.

Choose your own status for a meeting.

Find out more: Change your status in Teams

Mandatory Comments for Approvals App

Teams admins and approval template creators can enable mandatory comments for when an approver responds to a request. Team admins can go through the Teams Admin Center under Managed Apps and select the corresponding setting.

Mandatory Comments for Approvals App in Teams.

Find out more: Teams Approvals app availability

Data export within Approvals App

Through the approvals app, you can now export your personal approval data easily into an Excel file within a selected time period.

Data export within Approvals App.

Find out more: Teams Approvals app availability

Additional language support for Suggested Replies for mobile

Suggested replies are now supported in Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, French, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Korean, Czech, Danish, Turkish, and Polish. The auto replies are on by default but can be turned off.

Find out more: Use suggested replies to respond to messages without typing

View Together mode for everyone

Together mode creates a virtual shared space in which attendees feel like they are sitting in the same room. Now, meeting organizer and presenters can start Together mode for all of a meeting’s participants. Previously, this view could only be enabled for your own personal view.

To enable this feature, simply check the Select Together Mode for Everyone option after you choose a scene. All meeting participants can then join this immersive experience together. This is currently only available for Teams Desktop users.

View Together mode for everyone.

Find out more: Select Together Mode for everyone

Adjust brightness and soft-focus video filters

Enhance the video quality when lighting is poor by turning on the Adjust brightness filter. You also can use Soft focus to apply a subtle smoothing effect. Both filters are now available before joining meetings, as well as during meetings. Simply navigate to the device settings to enable these filters. Currently, Soft focus is not available for EDU tenants.

Adjust brightness and soft-focus video filters.

Find out more: New Microsoft Teams Filters Enhance Personal Appearance in Video Meetings

VDI improvements

Multi-window support for Teams for VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware – Teams multi-window support is available for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for Azure Windows Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware. 

Background Blur for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 – Background blur effects are now available for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. Users on Teams for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 can make meetings more personalized and avoid unexpected distractions by applying background effects. 

Give and Take Control for Teams on VDI for Citrix – Give and Take Control allows a meeting participant to control the presenter’s shared content during screensharing. 

Dynamic Emergency Calling for work from home on VDI for VMware – Dynamic Emergency Calling is now enabled for Teams on VDI for VMWare, allowing users to make emergency calls (E911) while working from home. It also lets users to validate (and if necessary, edit) the address that will be communicated to emergency responders. Learn more how to configure dynamic emergency calling.

Direct Guest Join for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android

Zoom meetings can now be joined directly through Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android devices. To use this feature, simply schedule a new meeting on Zoom or forward an existing meeting to your Microsoft Teams Room, and it will appear on the calendar. Click on “Join” from your Teams Rooms device to enter the meeting.

At this time, support is limited to controls such as camera and microphone, but additional functionality will be integrated in the future. Supported devices are currently the Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50, with support for additional device manufacturers coming soon. 

This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).

Find out more: What’s new in Teams devices

Horizontal participant gallery

To increase the flexibility of the meeting stage, the orientation of participant video feeds can be displayed horizontally and located below the meeting stage when content is shared, or participants are spotlighted. You can change the location of the participant gallery through the layout chooser experience on the Teams Rooms console.

Horizontal participant gallery for Teams Rooms.

This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).

Find out more: What’s new in Teams devices

Education

These features are currently launched, or rolling out to Microsoft Teams for Education customers:

Reading Coach –  Reading Coach builds on Reading Progress by identifying the five most challenging words for each individual student and presenting those words with tools to support the learner in practicing independently.

Setting Language or Locale for a Reading Progress passage – Microsoft have now added an Edit Language feature to make changing a language or locale from, for example, French (France) to French (Canada), as easy as a couple of clicks.

Fifteen new auto-detect languages – Microsoft have announced that we have added support for fifteen new auto-detect languages in Reading Progress, bringing our total to 116. To see the full list of supported languages, please visit this site.

Assignments and Grades support for up to 1000 students – The Assignments and Grades features, Teams has now added support for classes up to 1,000 students and has updated the functionality to allow educators to return all submissions to their students, without needing to wait for the work to be complete.

Rubrics updated for Educators & Students on mobile devices – With this new upgrade, you can now create and edit rubrics directly from your mobile devices, and students can more easily read rubrics on their mobile devices, as well.

Apps Support in Grading Pane – Microsoft have now updated the Grading pane in Assignments to also support apps. This allows the educator to launch the app directly from the Grading pane if there is work the student has done within that particular app. Whenever there is an app added to an assignment, it will now be shown in the Grading pane.

Improved Educator Dashboard navigation – To create an easier entry point for drilling into this student data and reports, Microsoft have created a more intuitive navigation bar to the Insights tab app. To learn more, please check out this video.

Moodle LMS integration with M365 – In addition to integration with Canvas and Blackboard, Microsoft has now partnered with Moodle to deliver more seamless integrated learning experiences. Microsoft Teams Classes LTI and Teams Meeting LTI apps are now available within Moodle.

Find out more: What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | June 2022

Government

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defence (DoD):

Together Mode in Teams Meetings on Web – Web users are now able to change the Teams meeting layout to Together mode by clicking the more options ellipsis […] in their meeting control bar. With Together mode, participants are digitally placed in a shared background, making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room even when you are apart. Available in DOD.

Anonymous meeting join across clouds – Join meetings in other clouds anonymously from your Teams desktop app. Previously, if you wanted to join a meeting hosted in a cloud different from your tenant’s, you were directed to use the Teams web experience. Now, DOD users will be able to join meetings in Commercial, GCC, and GCC-High clouds from your desktop, enabling an improved meeting experience. This feature leverages your existing Allow anonymous users to join meetings settings. If you already have these settings configured, no additional changes are required. Available in DOD. Learn more.

Presenter mode: Controls to move and resize presenter video – There is a new enhancement to the Presenter mode feature. Now, a presenter can choose whether to show up on the left or right side of the content and resize their video feed while automatically adjusting content size accordingly. This can be applied to all modes on Desktop or Window sharing, including standout, side-by-side, and reporter. Available in GCC and GCC-High.

Mirror my video – You no longer have to see the text in your video flipped. Imagine a primary school teacher with a small whiteboard in hand, or you have a virtual background with text in it. While the meeting audience sees the text correctly, you see the text flipped. By providing you with the option to un-mirror, you will be able to see the text correctly. Go to your Device Settings and toggle off “Mirror my video.” Available in GCC-High and DOD.

Music Mode – High-fidelity music mode enables Microsoft Teams users to experience richer sound experiences when sharing non-speech content such as live music, songs through other applications, or medical signals during a virtual appointment with a physician. High-fidelity music mode enables significantly improved audio quality in Teams calls and meetings. The optimized experience in Teams applies to signals captured by microphones, as well as audio played while sharing an application or desktop. Available in GCC-High. Learn more.

Support of Live Caption for Teams on VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix – Live captions are now generally available in Teams on virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix. Teams on VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix (pre-requisite required) can detect what’s being said and who is saying it with real-time captions. See use live captions in a Teams meeting on how to get started. Available in GCC and GCC-High.

New default settings when opening Office files For Government clouds – Users can set their default preference as Browser, Desktop, or Teams when opening Office (Word, Excel, and Power Point) files that are shared in Teams. Desktop setting can be selected if the latest Office clients are installed and activated. The process of updating default settings is fairly simple. Learn how to set it up here.

Power Apps

In Power Apps: Express Design, Power Pages, RTE for portals, Power Platform command line updates, modern app designer GA, Access migration GA, new data sources for the virtual connection provider

Express Design

The Power Apps team have announced the preview of express design in Power Apps: the ability to instantly generate low-code apps directly from design files and images. Power Apps express design is like an AI-powered co-pilot helping create apps alongside you. Here’s how it works:

  • Get going with a variety of content types: Start with a paper form, PowerPoint, PDF, a screenshot of a UI from a legacy app, or even a picture of a hand-drawn app that you’ve sketched out on paper. Or point to a design file in Figma. 
  • Advanced AI will scan your file: Using cognitive AI models that are trained to recognize common application elements, Power Apps will automatically generate an app with a working user experience and data schema in Microsoft Dataverse.
  • Tune the model to get exactly what you need: From the AI-generated starting point, make quick inline adjustments. Need a dropdown control, or maybe a date picker? No problem.
  • Seamlessly connect to all of your data: Easily adapt and configure the application using low code. Use more than 675 prebuilt connectors to integrate with your existing systems including SAP, Salesforce, and SQL.
  • Add as many screens as you like: If you want to add more screens to the app, simply upload additional files, or create them easily in the low-code Power Apps Studio.

Find out more: New: turn images and designs into apps using AI-powered express design

Power Pages (Preview)

The Power Apps team have announced the preview of Microsoft Power Pages, the fifth product in the Microsoft Power Platform family. Power Pages empowers anyone, regardless of their technical background, with an effective platform to create data-powered, modern, and secure websites.

In addition to being low-code, Power Pages extends far beyond portals former capabilities to enable organizations of any size to securely build websites with exciting new aesthetic features such as a versatile Template Hub, Design Studio, and other advanced capabilities for customization with pro-dev extensibility.

Find out more: Announcing the preview of Microsoft Power Pages

Rich text editor for Power Apps Portals

Rich text editor (RTE) can now be used with Power Apps portals starting with version 9.4.3.x. This feature provides the following capabilities:

  • Use the control with your text fields and allow your portal users to author and view rich formatted content.
  • The rich text editing capabilities are powered by the same code component that is available for Power Apps.
Announcing rich text editor for Power Apps portals.

Find out more: Announcing rich text editor for Power Apps portals

Power Platform command line updates (April refresh) v1.15.x

Here are the new and updated features as part of the April refresh of Power Platform command line:

  • Solution command updates – In this release pac solution unpack and pack will also unpack Canvas apps using the parameter –processCanvasApps.
  • Packaging updates – The packaging construct within Power Platform allows a user to bundle multiple solutions into a package and can be deployed all together as one unit.
  • Administration improvements – For the administration commands, you can now create, update, and delete Microsoft Teams environments.

Find out more: Power Platform Command Line: New Updates (April Refresh) v1.15.x

Power Apps modern app designer general availability

The Power Apps team have nnounced the general availability of the modern app designer, enabling a seamless, intuitive way to build robust model-driven apps with Dataverse grids, forms, and custom pages with just a few clicks. The modern app designer is now the default designer for model-driven apps and is at full feature parity with the classic designer.

Announcing the general availability of the Power Apps modern app designer.

Find out more: Announcing the general availability of the Power Apps modern app designer

Access Migration to Power Apps and Dataverse general availability

Microsoft Access users can migrate their data into Power Apps and Dataverse. Customers who have the current or monthly channel for Microsoft 365 and Office can update their Microsoft Access to build 16.0.15128.20248 or later to make use of the Dataverse Connector and migration tool.

The Access migration tool and connector provided within MS Access streamlines the process of migrating tables, relationships, and data with setup taking just a few minutes, and migration handled for you.

The workflow of migrating data from Access to Dataverse, with synchronous usage by Access forms and Power Apps.

Find out more: Access Migration to Power Apps and Dataverse is released to General Availability

New data sources for the Virtual Connection Provider

The Power Apps team have announced they are adding Excel and SharePoint to the virtual connection providers for virtual tables. Virtual tables connect to existing data outside of Dataverse allowing Power Apps and the Power Platform to treat it like local data. If you have a list that stores all of your product data in SharePoint, a virtual table lets you access that data within an app and also provide relationships between Dataverse tables and the SharePoint lists. 

Virtual Table Components.

Find out more: Announcing New Data Sources for the Virtual Connection Provider

Power Automate

In Power Automate: New capabilities for AI Builder, Power Automate pane, process advisor updates, restore deleted flow, doubled chatbot coverage, 14 new verified. 36 independent publisher connectors, desktop update May 2022, bulk resubmit & cancel for cloud flows

New capabilities for AI Builder

Announced during Microsoft Build 2022, the following new and upcoming capabilities are coming to AI Builder:

  • Unstructured document processing: Microsoft are expanding Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) capabilities for Power Automate by adding support for unstructured document processing.
  • Model performance metrics for structured documents: A re-designed and re-structured document model page to include a global accuracy score.
  • General availability of Image Classification: Now generally available, Lobe is a free, easy-to-use app from Microsoft that helps you build image classification models on your own computer.
  • To improve transparency of AI Builder credits and facilitate capacity management, the Power Platform Licensing guide has been updated to include individual credit consumption rates for each AI Builder scenario.
  • AI Builder learning and training materials have been updated in the AI Builder in a day Lab. New training courses come complete with sample code and data sets to get you started building your first AI models easily.
  • Text Recognition: Support for up to 164 languages. The pre-trained model allows you to extract printed or handwritten text from images, such as photos or street signs and products, as well as from documents.
  • AI Builder is now available in South Korea
Extracting key-value pairs from a contractual agreement.

Find out more: Exciting new capabilities for AI Builder

Power Automate pane in Power Apps

The new Power Automate pane in the Power Apps Canvas Studio is now available. Without leaving your app, you can now create, edit, view, or add an already built flow from the Power Automate pane.

Introducing the new Power Automate pane in Power Apps.

Find out more: Introducing the new Power Automate pane in Power Apps

Process advisor updates

Take a look at the following new and upcoming capabilities are coming to process advisor:

  • Seamlessly generate Cloud flow Insights: With a few easy clicks, you can visualize your flow’s performance, identify bottlenecks and optimization opportunities, and monitor for business drifts.
  • Easily onboard data with Templates: With templates like Azure Dev Ops, Power Apps and Desktop Flows you can now visualize and manage the processes that are central to running your organization in a matter of clicks.
  • Visualize your process and act with deeper insights: With the new time analysis report you can drill down into time bottlenecks to understand the root cause and take the best action to optimize and automate your process.
  • Collaborate to amplify impact from learnings: For data processes, the viewer role grants the invited user read access to the process analytics and the ability to invite others with the viewer role. Recording-based processes have roles focused on managing recordings.
  • Get to Insights faster with Auto generated grouping: Process advisor now supports auto creating activities from the recording.
Easily onboard data with Templates.

Find out more: Discover exciting new experiences and capabilities in process advisor

Restore deleted flow

The Power Automate team have announced the capability to restore a flow (outside of a solution) with the latest version of the PowerApps Administration cmdlet. As an admin, you can now use PowerShell to restore a flow you deleted or on behalf of someone in your company without having to file a support ticket with Microsoft.

Restore-AdminFlow -EnvironmentName Default-55abc7e5-2812-4d73-9d2f-8d9017f8c877 -FlowName 4d1f7648-ad60-4871-91cb-b77d7ef3c239
 //To view examples: Get-Help Restore-AdminFlow -Examples

Find out more: Restore deleted flows with PowerShell

Doubled Power Virtual Agent chatbot content coverage

The Power Virtual Agents chatbot in the left navigation of the web site can answer even more of your questions! With this update, if the chatbot cannot find the answers to the questions you asked, it now provides a dropdown with all the topics and scenarios in Power Automate for you to get help from. 

Doubled Power Virtual Agent chatbot content coverage.

Find out more: Doubled Power Virtual Agent chatbot content coverage

14 new verified and 36 new independent publisher connectors released in April 2022

In April 2022 there were 14 new verified connectors and a record breaking 36 new Independent Publisher connectors were published in April:

Verified connectors

  • App Power Forms – he easiest way to include external stakeholders in your business processes.
  • Autodesk Forge Data Exchange – connect design and make data between Revit and the tools of your choice.
  • BuildingMinds DigitalTwin Core – empowers customers to build a resilient and data-driven future for their real estate businesses.
  • CyberProof Actions – next generation incident management and response platform for building Security Operations Centers (SOCs).
  • IA-Connect JML – easy and robust automation solution for your Joiner, Mover, Leaver processes.
  • Jedox OData Hub – the world’s most adaptable planning and performance management solution.
  • Knowledgeone RecFind6 – RF6Connector, was designed specifically to integrate RecFind 6’s powerful EDRM functionality with SharePoint On-premises and Online
  • Lansweeper App For Sentinel – Integration of Lansweeper app on the MS Sentinel Platform implements the investigative actions.
  • nunify – nunify is a DIY Event Tech & Event App Builder Platform.
  • Replicon – self-driving professional services automation solution that uses advanced technology to analyze real-time data,
  • Revelation helpdesk – create and update items in your helpdesk such as tickets.
  • TrueDialog SMS – integrate text messaging (sending & receiving) into your business processes in a couple of clicks.
  • Verified – Automated and integrated solutions for e-signing enables smoother sales processes.
  • YakChat – Add SMS to your automated flows with the YakChat Power Automate Connector. 
  • Datamotion – bridges Power Automate’s capabilities with our secure message delivery API functionality.
  • SurveyMonkey – automate critical workflows for a wide range of use cases and flow feedback data into key business apps.
  • Timeghost – includes the option for users to set up time tags and project tags.

Independent publisher connectors

Power Automate for desktop update – May 2022

The May 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.20) has been released. Take a look at some of the new features and updates below:

  • All types of clicks are now supported in browser automation
  • A timeout value is now available for all browser automation actions
  • Tabular data extracted from a PDF file can now maintain their structure
  • Enhanced experience in the console for users with limited permissions
  • GA of ‘Display custom form’ action
All types of clicks are now supported in browser automation.

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – May 2022 update

Bulk resubmit and cancel for cloud flows

Now you can go to the Run history page, select the runs you would like to resubmit or cancel in the ribbon, and resubmit or cancel the runs. That’s it! Once you have resubmitted or canceled the flow run, you will be able to see your canceled and successful resubmitted flow runs.

Resubmitting or canceling your flows is easy.

Find out more: Introducing bulk resubmit and cancel for cloud flows

Power BI

In Power BI: On-prem data gateway, Power BI May 2022 feature summary, Report Server May 2022, ExecuteQueries REST API, automatic aggregations, Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services, datamart, SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0, Power BI integration for PowerPoint, Goals becomes Metrics, Exportable Formatted Data Tables (Preview), Action bar for interactive reports, SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates, New Power BI Known Issue page, New data source and gateway management experience

On-premises data gateway May 2022 update

The Power BI team have announced the release of the May 2022 update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.126.8).

Find out more: On-premises data gateway May 2022 update is now available

Power BI Desktop feature summary – May 2022

Updates include the general availability of Canvas zoom and Data point rectangle select features, Field parameters and Error bars for columns and line combination charts new preview features, plus lots more.

Find out more: Power BI May 2022 Feature Summary

Power BI Report Server feature summary – May 2022

This May 2022 update brings a new version of Power BI Report Servery with a host of new & improved features, including:

Reporting

Other

Multi row card selection.

Find out more: Power BI Report Server May 2022 Feature Summary

ExecuteQueries REST API general availability

The ExecuteQueries REST API is now generally available. By using this REST API, you can query datasets in Power BI from practically any modern environment on any platform, as long as you can authenticate with Azure Active Directory (AAD) and construct a Web request. 

Find out more: Announcing general availability of the ExecuteQueries REST API

Automatic aggregations general availability

Automatic aggregations is now generally available. By using automatic aggregations in Power BI Premium, you can unlock cloud-scale data volumes for interactive analysis. The fundamental idea is to import data into the dataset only at the aggregated level while leaving the detail data at the source to minimize data duplication. 

Announcing general availability of automatic aggregations.

Find out more: Announcing general availability of automatic aggregations

Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services

You can now create composite Power BI models by connecting to SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services tabular models. SQL Server 2022 is available now for public preview and when you upgrade or deploy tabular models to SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services. This DirectQuery connection becomes available in Power BI Desktop starting with May 2022 release. Existing or new tabular models hosted on SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services can be joined with other data in Power BI Desktop to create a composite model.

Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services

Find out more: Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services

Datamart in Power BI (Public Preview)

Datamart in Power BI is a new self-service capability included with Power BI Premium that enables users to uncover actionable insights through their own data without any help from IT teams. For the first time, we are empowering everyone with the right-sized ability to build a relational database for analytics using no code experiences for workloads up to 100GB, without compromising enterprise security and governance demands. 

Datamart in Power BI (Public Preview).

Find out more: Announcing public preview of datamart in Power BI

What’s new in SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0

The public CTP 2.0 of SQL Server 2022 is now available at aka.ms/getsqlserver2022. This public preview includes the following enhancements for Analysis Services tabular:

  • Power BI support for SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services tabular models as a DirectQuery connection for composite models
  • Improved MDX query performance
  • Improved resource governance
  • Query interleaving now includes short query bias with fast cancellation

Find out more: What’s new in SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0

Power BI integration for PowerPoint

The Power BI team have announced the preview of Power BI data storytelling in PowerPoint. The team are thrilled to be shipping an add-in that lets you add Power BI reports and bookmarks to your slides and enjoy the delightful interactive experience of Power BI inside your presentations. 

Power BI integration for PowerPoint.

Find out more: Tell a story with your data. Announcing the all-new Power BI integration for PowerPoint.

Goals in Power BI is becoming ‘metrics’ and is moving to general availability

Now generally available, metrics in Power BI (feature formerly known as ‘goals’) along with a ton of new features to make scorecarding in Power BI even more effective.

Power BI metrics.

Find out more: Goals in Power BI is becoming ‘metrics’ and is moving to GA!

Exportable formatted data tables (Preview)

The Power BI team have announced the public preview of a low-code web authoring experience for exportable formatted data tables.  You can use the formatted table feature to create paginated reports in any modern workspace, including workspaces that aren’t in a Power BI Premium capacity. 

Exportable Formatted Data Tables (Preview).

Find out more: Exportable Formatted Data Tables (Preview)

Action bar for interactive reports in the Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams

The Power BI tab in Microsoft Teams is getting a new action bar for interactive reports. The action bar enables users to use all the capabilities they have for interactive reports in the service when they’re added to channels, chats, or meetings as tabs in Microsoft Teams. 

New action bar for interactive reports in Microsoft Teams.

Find out more: Announcing: Action bar for interactive reports in the Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams

SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates

SandDance is a data visualization tool developed by the VIDA (Visualization and Interactive Data Analysis) team at Microsoft Research and is available as a custom visual for Power BI. The VIDA team has made significant updates to the SandDance 2019 custom visual. The team have enhanced the ability to deliver richer and more compelling data-driven stories, both by adding support for Power BI bookmarks and making significant improvements to the rendering capabilities.

Find out more: SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates

New Power BI Known Issue page

Microsoft have recently launched a new Power BI Known Issues page. This is an example of our continued effort to increase users’ confidence in our transparency, awareness of issues, and dedication to improve customers’ success.

Find out more: Power BI Known Issues page

New data source and gateway management experience

The Power BI team have announced a new data source and gateway management experience in Power BI! The team recently replaced the “manage gateway” experience with a new interface, making it easier to manage your gateways and data sources. With this new experience, you also get the ability to manage and create the Vnet gateway and use the recently released additional security roles.

New data source and gateway management experience.

Find out more: New data source and gateway management experience

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