Power BI Weekly
Issue 365
7th July 2026
It's a big edition this week, so let's get into it.
First of all, Nicoleta Cristache has shared the unsurprising news that Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms for the nineteenth year running - yet another well done to the Power BI and Fabric team!
Talking about the Power BI team: Zoe Douglas has been busy on the Power BI Updates blog, with three deep dives on generally available features. As you know, Visual calculations let you write DAX directly on a visual without touching the model. There's a deep dive into tooltip options, covering curated tooltip fields, the new sentence-format hover text, and fully custom report page tooltips, and, finally, a look at the Shape Map visual, which now supports your own TopoJSON/GeoJSON boundaries rather than being stuck with standard administrative regions. Also from Zoe, a piece on Power BI reports and Fabric Apps, pitching Rayfin as an AI-first way to build custom web apps on top of your semantic model.
Moving on - Carmel has continued her Optimising DAX series over on the endjin blog. Why Cardinality Matters explains why unique-value counts drive both model size and scan speed along with some practical tips. The follow-up, The Cost of Relationships, builds on that to show that relationship cost is driven by the cardinality of the key column, not the column you're actually filtering by, which is why header/detail designs linking two large tables on a unique key are quite detrimental to a model. Worth reading both together.
Carmel also formally announced Fabric Weekly (which I mentioned last week), a new sibling newsletter to this one, curating everything happening across Microsoft Fabric each week; if that's part of your day job, it's worth a sign-up.
Finally, for anyone new to the tool or onboarding someone who is, Patrick LeBlanc has put together a 30-minute beginner's tutorial covering the whole Power BI workflow end to end, from connecting data through to publishing a report.
Data Prep
- Document Power BI Dataflows Gen1 with Copilot Cowork (Before You Migrate) Learn how to use Microsoft Copilot CoWork to automatically generate comprehensive documentation for Power BI Dataflows Gen1, simplifying migration preparation with minimal effort.
- Master Power Query in Power BI | Tips & Tricks for Faster Data Cleaning Learn practical Power Query techniques for efficient data cleaning, transformation, and optimization with expert tips from Chiamaka Igwe, ideal for both beginners and experienced Power BI users.
- Copo de nieve vs Estrella: Cuál esquema es realmente más rápido en Power BI? [Spanish] This tutorial shows how to convert a snowflake schema to a star schema in Power BI, improving DAX calculation performance and speeding up reports through structural simplification with Power Query.
- Calculating Geometric Mean in Power BI Power BI does not have a built-in geometric mean function, so this article explains how to compute it manually using products and logarithmic transformations for datasets with diverse distributions.
Data Modeling
- How to write good AI instructions for a semantic model Crafting effective AI instructions requires understanding user needs, using query logs, and iteratively refining prompts to enhance conversational BI and agentic development.
- Cómo usar Claude en Power BI (Curso de IA) [Spanish] Claude connects to Power BI via the Model Context Protocol, enabling users to generate DAX measures and calendars through natural language prompts.
- Using REMOVEFILTERS in DAX user defined functions The article demonstrates how to create a DAX user-defined function that employs REMOVEFILTERS to eliminate filter-keeping column filters on a calendar table, returning the cleaned data set.
- Optimising DAX: Why Cardinality Matters Understanding cardinality is crucial for optimizing DAX models because high cardinality increases memory usage and slows down operations like SUM.
- Optimising DAX: The Cost of Relationships Understanding that DAX relationship costs depend on key column cardinality reveals why models with high-cardinality primary keys like header/detail structures suffer significant performance penalties despite efficient storage.
- DAX Fundamentals Part 3: The Patterns That Make Reports Work This DAX Fundamentals Part 3 video covers time intelligence functions, variables, and calculation groups to enhance report building and performance.
- From 59 Copy Pasted Measures to One Library: What Migrating to GA DAX UDFs Actually Taught Me Migrating to GA DAX User-Defined Functions revealed critical lessons on parameter design, breaking points, and a quick audit process for existing models.
- Understanding the TREATAS Function in DAX with a Real Use Case TREATAS in Power BI enables applying column values as filters for another, creating virtual relationships between unrelated tables with sub-100ms latency.
- Providing Centralized Semantic Models (Helper Models) with Composite Models in Power BI Creating a central semantic model with Power BI’s composite models streamlines development by allowing reusable Date dimensions, Calculation Groups, and other components to be maintained once and accessed across multiple reports with simple permissions.
Report Authoring and Interactivity
- Deep dive into the Shape Map in Power BI (Generally Available) The Shape Map visual in Power BI now generally available lets users incorporate custom geographic boundaries and dynamic color formatting directly into their reports.
- Deep dive into tooltip options in Power BI visuals (Generally Available) Power BI’s newly available tooltip options let users customize hover experiences with curated fields, sentence-style insights, and fully customizable report page tooltips.
- Deep dive into visual calculations: Adding calculations directly to your Power BI visuals (Generally Available) Power BI now offers general availability of visual calculations, enabling users to embed DAX formulas directly into charts and tables for more dynamic reporting.
- Power BI reports and Fabric Apps: Expanding how you build on your semantic model data Power BI’s Fabric Apps extension lets developers build interactive applications directly from semantic models, enhancing both analyst reporting and developer innovation.
- Power BI Azure Map: Highlight the Selected Location While Keeping All Markers (Filipino) Learn how to highlight a selected location in Power BI’s Azure Map while preserving all other markers using conditional formatting techniques.
- Why Measures Don’t Work in Slicers (And How to Fix It) This guide explains why measures cannot be used directly in slicers and shows how to create dynamic, measure-driven slicers using DAX functions such as Generate Series, SELECTEDVALUE, and CALCULATE.
- A SIMPLE Way AI is changing my POWER BI workflow The video demonstrates an AI-powered PowerShell script that automates creating visually perfect bounding boxes around groups in Power BI, streamlining data visualization workflows.
- Choosing the Right Charts in Power BI Choosing the right charts in Power BI involves matching visual types line charts for trends over time column/bar charts for comparisons pie/donut charts for parts of a whole and scatter plots for relationships to your data goals while avoiding clutter with interactive tools like slicers and tooltips to ensure clarity.
- Power BI: Why Your Slicer Isn’t Filtering Power BI slicers may fail to filter visuals due to misconfigured interactions, missing data relationships between tables, or incorrect filter direction settings in the model view.
- Before AI Builds Your Power BI Report, Tell It This AI's increasing role in Power BI report design requires consistent reinforcement of accessibility requirements like color contrast, alt text, and interactive usability to ensure AI-generated dashboards meet WCAG standards.
- FxColorBlindSim Tool FxColorBlindSim uses validated transformation matrices to simulate colour vision deficiencies within Power BI and Excel via a Power Query M function.
- Testing Microsoft Skills for Fabric in Power BI Report Development Microsoft Skills for Fabric automates the entire report lifecycle, from semantic modeling to publishing, by leveraging AI agents within Claude Code.
- The Future of Power BI Reporting Is Here — Rayfin Data App with TypeScript + Semantic Model The Rayfin Data App template transforms Power BI reporting with a TypeScript/React frontend and Semantic Model backend, offering cost-effective, flexible, and powerful analytics without needing Pro licenses for each user.
Deployment, Security and Operations
- Understanding The “Database Was Evicted To Balance The CPU Load” Error In Power BI The "Database Was Evicted To Balance The CPU Load" error in Power BI means the semantic model was relocated to another node because of high CPU usage, temporarily canceling active queries or refreshes.
General
- Announcing Fabric Weekly: a free Microsoft Fabric newsletter Fabric Weekly curates daily updates on Microsoft Fabric’s rapid evolution across data engineering, reporting, storage, governance, management, and AI integrations into one weekly newsletter.
- Microsoft named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms Microsoft Fabric anchors this recognition by unifying data governance and semantic models to ground AI agents in trusted business context.
- Power BI Tutorial for Beginners (Step-by-Step in 30 Minutes) This 30-minute beginner-friendly Power BI tutorial covers the end-to-end workflow from connecting data sources to publishing interactive reports, emphasizing learning Power BI as a cohesive process.
- ¿Miedo a que la IA te reemplace? Mira esto [Spanish] This video examines AI's transformation of the data analyst role using Power BI, focusing on its effects on data connection, modeling, DAX, and visualizations while stressing the enduring importance of human skills.