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Category: Power BI

Two Options for Content Layout in Power BI

Published 2026-02-16 by Kevin Feasel

Valerie Junk covers a pair of options:

In this tutorial, I want to show a small but very practical formatting setting in Power BI.

When we create a table or matrix visual, we sometimes end up with white space on the right side. For example, if you show data by month and you only have 6 months of data so far, but you design the visual to fit 12 months, the table/matrix is already sized for the full year, which leads to a lot of empty space.
In Power BI we have two column header formatting options:

Click through for the two options, where you can find the option, and some important information around both options.

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Adaptive Time Series Visualization in Microsoft Fabric

Published 2026-02-13 by Kevin Feasel

Devang Shah and Slava Trofimov show off a design pattern:

This design pattern provides intuitive, interactive Fabric-native experiences for any user:

  • Intelligent time binning: Handle billions of data points by automatically grouping them into optimal intervals.
  • Time brushing: Zoom in any period with drag-and-select interactions.
  • Multi-metric comparison: View multiple time series side by side across different assets.
  • Flexible aggregation: Switch between average, min, max, and sum with a single selection.
  • Anomaly detection: KQL queries detect unusual patterns in your time series with no ML expertise required.
  • Statistical insights: View descriptive statistics and correlations.
  • Contextualization: Bring asset hierarchies, tag metadata, and definitions directly into the report for richer interpretation.

Read on to learn more about the pattern and how it works. There are a lot of moving parts to get right, but the end result looks impressive.

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Manual Updates to Power BI On-Premises Gateways

Published 2026-02-12 by Kevin Feasel

Leo Li announces a new preview feature:

The On-premises Data Gateway manual update feature is now available in preview! This new capability simplifies gateway maintenance and helps you keep your environment secure and up to date with greater flexibility and control.

With this new feature, administrators can now manually trigger updates—either directly through the gateway UI or programmatically via API or script. This ensures that you can manage update timing based on your organization’s internal policies and maintenance windows while still benefiting from the latest features, performance improvements, and security patches.

Read on to see how this works, as well as where the Fabric team is going with this.

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DAX DATEADD Parameters and Calendar-Based Time Intelligence

Published 2026-02-10 by Kevin Feasel

Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari check how two sets of functionality overlap:

The primary reason to adopt the new calendar-based time intelligence in Power BI is its flexibility. Classic time intelligence functions work out of the box and deliver meaningful results in most scenarios. However, to do so, they make assumptions about the calendar structure and the desired outcomes. Sometimes, the choices are not aligned with the user requirements, and developers need to author their own time intelligence calculations.

The new calendar-based time intelligence functions provide greater flexibility by allowing developers to configure parameters that drive the internal algorithms to meet diverse requirements. Using these parameters requires a precise understanding of the scenario for which they were built, which requires some attention to detail.

Click through to learn more.

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Notes on Migrating to PBIR Format

Published 2026-02-10 by Kevin Feasel

Nicky van Vroenhoven shares some notes:

Let me be clear: I really like and support the updates that Rui Romano has been pushing the last years!
In short, it brings:

  • Better support for CI / CD and source control 
  • Better integration for programmatic report updates, e.g. with LLM’s
  • More reliable merge outcomes with the PBIP and PBIR structures

With that being said, I do think some customers do not want to have preview features in production, so they will be cautious with the recent developments. Since the end of January, the PBIR format will be the default if you don’t take action.
If you don’t want to enable PBIR yet, or just want to know more about the transition, read on.

The idea of making a preview feature the default rubs me the wrong way. If it’s going to be the default, you should have the gumption to call it GA. If you’re not willing to call it GA for whatever reason, that means it’s not ready to be the default.

This is regardless of the fact that I like what the PBIR format offers and think companies should bias toward that direction.

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The Challenge of Many-to-Many Relationships in Power BI

Published 2026-02-04 by Kevin Feasel

Ben Richardson explains a common anti-pattern in Power BI semantic models:

Relationships sit at the heart of literally everything you do in Power BI.

Before you make measures, visuals and reports, relationships are established to define how your data fits together. Their job is simple on the surface – but vital: describe how each table is connected.

If you can design these relationships well, everything else will run much smoother.

Across any data domain, strong models rely on clear Grain, correct Cardinality, and a Star Schema built with well-defined Fact and Dimension tables.

Read on to understand how many-to-many relationships stress this understanding in Power BI an different techniques for dealing with those sorts of relationships.

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Working with Headers in Paginated Reports

Published 2026-01-29 by Kevin Feasel

Andy Brownsword just wnats things to line up correctly:

If you’ve tried to get header rows to repeat or scroll as you move through your paginated reports, you may have felt the frustration of getting them working correctly. Whether it’s Reporting Services, Power BI, or Fabric, the flavour doesn’t matter.

The properties on the tablix should provide the functionality, but they’re not reliable. In this post we’ll look at how to achieve the repetition and scrolling behaviour that will work consistently.

Read on to re-experience one of the more annoying pain points around SQL Server Reporting Services and now Power BI paginated reports.

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Showing Transaction Details on Power BI Matrices

Published 2026-01-27 by Kevin Feasel

Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari want more detail:

A common challenge in Power BI reporting is how to display several pieces of information about a single item (such as sales transactions, product details, or customer details) without dedicating a separate column to each attribute. Using individual columns for each detail can consume space, especially for fields that are often empty. This article explores techniques to consolidate multiple fields from a business entity or transaction into a single column in a matrix visual, thus presenting transaction details in a space-efficient way.

They walk through several iterations of the process. The real challenge with displaying those details is that your end users need to understand what’s in the details, as there’s no good way to describe what the information means. But when your users do understand what can be in there, I could see this being quite helpful.

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Solid Black Icons in Power BI Desktop January 2026

Published 2026-01-26 by Kevin Feasel

Marco Russo clues us in on a bug:

In mid-January 2026, many Power BI Desktop users began noticing a strange visual regression: several icons in the interface—including the Data, Model, and DAX icons—appeared as solid black shapes instead of their normal outlines. The issue appeared suddenly, even on machines where Power BI Desktop had not been updated. Because it happened the same week that Power BI Desktop January 2026 was released, this led to understandable confusion.

The root cause was not Power BI Desktop itself but an unexpected regression in the WebView2 runtime, one of the external dependencies used to render parts of the UI. Microsoft confirmed the issue and is preparing an official fix.

Marco does have a temporary fix that works until Microsoft has the official fix in place.

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