Power BI Weekly
Issue #339 - 6th January 2026
Welcome to the 339th edition of Power BI Weekly! I hope everyone had a restful break and you're all set for 2026. There haven't really been any official bits of Power BI content since the last edition, other than the On-premises data gateway December 2025 release, which highlights a new manual "update" option that is shown in both the Gateway UI and accessible via the API. The highlighted content this week is quite varied: first of all, Ben Gribaudo is back with an M deep-dive, this time enlightening us on all the intricacies of Type Equality, Andrzej Leszkiewicz has walked us through How to install DAX Lib packages using Power BI Desktop or Tabular Editor or AI, Marco and Alberto have shown us the importance of understanding Many-Many relationships in the article Analyzing the performance of limited and regular relationships, and Gary Carpenter has shared with us the first couple of episodes in a 4-part series on how to Level Up Your Power BI Cards.
🛠️ Data Prep
- Ben Gribaudo (@bgribaudo) describes Type Equality
- On the Excel Basement YouTube channel, Rahim Zulfiqar Ali (@rahimzulfiqar) explains How to Import Data from ZIP Files in Power BI?
- On the Power BI community blog, Tharun Kumar Ravikrindhi writes Does Referencing Queries in Power Query Really Reduce Database Load?
- Also on the Power BI community blog, Ankita Mishra (@TigerAnalytics) blogs about Power Query vs DAX: Where Should the Logic Live
🧩 Data Modeling
- On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo & Alberto Ferrari (@marcorus) write about Analyzing the performance of limited and regular relationships
- Also on the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) talks about What happened in the DAX world in 2025 and blogs about Measuring the impact of promotions on sales in Power BI
- On the Power BI community blog, Sachin Nandanwar blogs about the ABS & REL parameters in DAX Window function
- Ignacio Barrau (@ignacho_07) covers [DAX] Herramienta para ver linaje de medidas [Spanish]
- Antriksh Sharma (@AntrikshShar) blogs about Detecting Matrix Levels in DAX with ISINSCOPE and describes how to Show values for last N months in DAX
- Andrzej Leszkiewicz (@avatorl) describes How to install DAX Lib packages using Power BI Desktop or Tabular Editor or AI
- Gaurav Negi talks about How MCP is Transforming Power BI & Fabric Analytics | Real-World Demo
📊 Report Authoring and Interactivity
- On the Power BI community blog, Hari Gouthami writes about Revolutionizing Power BI Development: Create Dashboards in Minutes with GitHub Copilot and .pbip
- Valerie Junk (@porcubi) explains how to Create a Power BI JSON Theme with ChatGPT and Copilot
- Lukas Reese writes about Power BI Dark Mode Templates: Best Practices & Examples and describes Four Ways to Create Backgrounds in Power BI (Slow to Fast)
- Gary Carpenter describes how to Level Up Your Power BI Cards Beginner Guide (2026 Update) and explains how to Take Control of the New Power BI Card | Intermediate Guide (2026 Update)
- Bas Dohmen (@HowToPowerBI) talks about Don't Just show Actuals vs Target - Build This Power BI Visual Instead
- Dane Belarmino describes how to Auto Drill Down to Next Level In the Hierarchy With Slicer Selection In Power BI [Taglish] and covers Power BI: Call Center Performance Report
- On the Learning Science YouTube channel, Learning Science (@learn_scitech) talks about a Power BI Slicer: Last 1 Year, 2 Years, 3 Years Without DAX or Power Query
- On the SQLBI blog, Marco Russo (@marcorus) talks about Dynamic pricing model for aircraft seat sales with Synoptic Panel and Power BI
- On LinkedIn, Madison Giammaria shares the Hierarchical Gantt v2.0 visual
🚀 Deployment, Security and Operations
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) writes about Visualising Power BI Performance Analyzer Data With A Vibe-Coded Custom Visual, walks through Diagnosing Power BI DirectQuery Connection Limit Problems With Performance Analyzer and describes Diagnosing Power BI DirectQuery Performance Problems Caused By SQL Queries That Return Large Resultsets
- On the Fabric blog, Leo Li shares the On-premises data gateway December 2025 release
🌐 General
- On the BIFocal podcast, John White and Jason Himmelstein (@bifocalshow) present Episode 312 - Power BI November 2025 Feature Summary
- Soheil Bakhshi (@biinsightnz) describes Agentic AI in Power BI and Fabric, Part 1: Concepts, Terminology, and How to Think About It