A Spectacular Power BI Update

The November 2018 update of Power BI has been nothing short of spectacular. Among other things, this update introduces us to dataflows, one of the most anticpated features to come out in a while. In essence, dataflows allows us to perform complex data preparation steps within the Power BI cloud service. It’s now easier to build, standardize, and manage data preparation workflows across datasets stored on the service, all through the browser. In the coming months, dataflows will also let us leverage Azure Data Services like Azure Machine Learning for advanced analytics and AI.

Adi Regev has an excellent introduction to dataflows.

Matthew Roche provides a more in-depth look at Power BI dataflows, complete with hands-on tutorials, worked-out examples, and links to essential resources. His six-part blog series is a probably the best place to start.

For me, the ability to write Power Query M in the browser is the most exciting part of dataflows. In an upcoming post, I’ll explore how to build a series of data preparation steps in dataflows referencing Power Query M code stored somewhere else, like on a GitHub repo or a file server. I tweeted about this ability just the other day.