3 new helpful features for Power BI

1. On-object interaction

Always wanted and finally possible: Interactions on-object!

This feature is still in preview and must be activated accordingly:

Click on "File", select "Options and settings", click on "Options", choose "Preview Features" and select "On-object interaction".

After the activation, you can build and format visuals directly on the visual. You will find two icons on the left side of the visual. The first one is to build the visual and adjust for example type or the data:

The second is to do formattings like adding titles or axis labels:

Building a visual on-object

Begin building a visual by either

A) inserting a new visual from the ribbon and adding fields or

B) right-clicking on the canvas to “add visual” or

C) checking /dragging fields from the data pane. You will notice the visualization pane is no longer available, this is by design.

As you add fields, the visual type will dynamically update based on what Power BI believes is the best visual type for your data. If you want to manually change the visual type, you can do so via the “build a visual” button visual types tray or turn off the automatic suggestions toggle.

From this flyout, you can continue to add data using the “add data” button without having to drag fields from the data pane all the way on the right side of the canvas.

Formatting a visual on-object

The default behavior when hovering on a visual, you will see tooltips. When clicking on a visual you will get the cross highlight/cross filter effect. To avoid a conflict for this behavior, a new “format mode” is introduced. Once you are in “format mode” hover and click behavior change to show subselection regions.

You can enter the “format mode” one of 2 ways:

• Double-click on a visual
• Right-click and select "Format"

You will know you are in this new mode when the bounding box turns blue, the handle shape turns square. Now you can hover and click around the visual to format specific subselections. Simply right-click on the selected element to use the mini-toolbar and shortcut menu.

Other functional changes

• New panel
  The visualization section has been removed in favor of the on-object menu. Instead, a panel has been introduced to select between the areas. The areas can be selected from the display menu.

• Drillthrough and Tooltips
  Drillthrough and Tooltip page settings have been moved from the previous Visualizations pane into the Format page settings.

2. "Apply all slicers" and "Clear all slicers" button

With these two new buttons, filtering via slicers is on a new level: You can now add a button for “Apply all slicers” or “Clear all slicers” to your slicers.

The easiest way to add the buttons is with “Insert”, then “Buttons” and at the bottom of the menu the “Apply all” and “Clear all” buttons can be found:

Some things to keep in mind with these buttons:

• “Apply all slicers” and “Clear all slicers” buttons impact all the slicers on the report page. You cannot pick and choose which slicers you want each button to control. They also do not control the filter pane.
• You can have as many of these buttons on your report page as you like! If you have most of your slicers in one section, but maybe one or two slicers in another section, you can simply have a button in both sections. Either button, when pressed, will apply to all the slicers on the report page.

3. Visual container improvements

With this release, some key features to help customize your visual’s container are released. You will find these features in the "Title" settings of the formatting pane.

• Subtitle
  You can now turn on a subtitle that can be used to add extra context to your visuals.

• Divider
  To visually separate the visual header from its contents you can add a divider line.

• Spacing
  In addition to the Subtitle and Divider on your visual container, you can control the space below each component.

• Padding
  You can now control the container’s margin to create a negative space making the visuals look more professional and appealing.

 

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