In the August 2018 update of Power BI, we can now apply conditional formatting based on field value. This allows us to use a measure or column that contains a color name, a hex name/code and apply that color to the background of the cells and the font in the cells of that column. For example, if I want to use color to signify the product name, we can create a calculated column to assign color names to each product as shown below: Then add that calculated column (‘Color’) to your table, and go to the Conditional Formatting dialog for ‘Color’. Select ‘Background Color’.   Select ‘Field Value’ in the ‘Format by’ drop-down menu. Since I only have one color name per row, I will select First ‘Column Name’, Summarization ‘First’  and click OK. The background color of the cells in the calculated column will now be according to the color name in the cell. If you don’t want to see the color names, repeat the steps but select ‘Font Color’ as shown below. The entire cell will now be filled. If you want to use hex names/codes instead of color names, you can create a calculated measure/column using them as shown below. Now follow the same steps as above to apply conditional formatting to the table using hex codes/names. This can help highlight sets of data easily based on their values and without the need to set rules.

Introduction: PowerBI introduced the feature to format line styles and legends for line charts a while ago. However, these features were not applicable to lines in combination charts like ‘Line and Stacked Column Chart’ and ‘Line and Clustered Column Chart’. With the April update of PowerBI Desktop, we are now able to customise the format for lines in combo charts to different styles, which then reflect in the legend, making the chart easier to read and understand. Steps: While using a combo chart, all line series are in the ‘Solid’ format with just the defined colours differentiating them and the legend only displays their respective colours as shown below. To format the line or line series, go to the ‘Format’ pane and under the ‘Shapes’ card, you will find several options to customise the format of the lines. Shade Area can be switched On to shade the area each line encompasses. ‘Stroke Width’ allows you to adjust the thickness of all the lines. ‘Line Style’ allows you to select whether the line will be displayed as a solid line, dashed or dotted line as shown below. The next option is ‘Show marker’, which when switched On allows you to select the Marker shape, size and colour. To customise each line in a series individually, switch On ‘Customize series’. You will get a dropdown to select from the line values and options to customise the format of each line based on the line value selected from the dropdown. Coming to the customisation of the legend, you can do so by going to the ‘Legend’ card under the ‘Format’ pane. In the Style option, you have three options in the dropdown menu – Markers only: This will display only the respective markers in the legend. Line and markers: This will display both the respective lines and markers in the legend. Line only: This will display only the respective line style in the legend (shown below). Conclusion: As we can see, the new April update allows us to completely customise the lines in a combo chart, which not only add more visual appeal but also enables the user to easily read and understand the chart and the data it represents.

Introduction: With the latest update of Power BI, you can now ask top-n type questions and get answers based on your dataset. Questions like ‘What are the top 3 products by sales?’ or ‘Top Manufacturer by country’ are examples. This is also valid for bottom-n type questions like ‘Least selling product in a country’. Steps: 1. Go to your PowerBI Workspace and select your report. 2. Click on the ‘Edit’ button. 3. Select ‘Ask a question’. 4. Type in your question and the visualization will form with the answer based on your dataset. 5. Make changes to your Axis, Legend and Value fields if required. Conclusion: This feature enables the User to obtain important information from the dataset quickly and easily using natural language thereby enhancing the capability of Power BI to provide self-serving business intelligence.