Power BI July 2026 Feature Summary

Welcome to the July 2026 Power BI update!

This month, we're introducing new capabilities across reporting, modeling, mobile, and embedded analytics. Highlights include expanded modern visual defaults, conditional formatting improvements for line charts and legends, new org app capabilities and APIs, Model Options in the Power BI Service, and TMDL View on the web.

Events and Announcements

Your Road to the Power BI DataViz World Championships

Round Two of the Power BI DataViz World Championships is now open, with Round Three still ahead. Plus, one wildcard finalist will be selected from standout submissions across all stages of the championship.

 

Is this your moment?

The only way to find out is to enter. Every submission is a chance to learn something new, connect with the community, and showcase your creativity. You might surprise yourself along the way and earn a place in the finals. Join now.

Data Days Goes Through August 7th

Looking for your next Power BI breakthrough? Data Days brings together the best of data, AI, and analytics in free live sessions. Learn new skills, get inspired, and connect with the community.  

Will we see you in Barcelona?

The European Microsoft Fabric and SQL Community Conference take place September 28 to October 1 in Barcelona, Spain, bringing together Microsoft experts and community leaders for exclusive content, live demos, and key announcements, along with more than 130 sessions spanning Fabric, Azure AI, Databases, Power BI, and Microsoft Purview. And of course, the live Dataviz World Championships finale!

 

The most recent event in Atlanta sold out. Don’t miss out and register for the Barcelona event with code FABCMTY200 to save €200.

General

Deprecation of Old File Picker experience in Power BI Desktop

In April we deprecated the old file picker experience in Power BI Desktop. Starting in October, users still utilizing versions of Power BI desktop from March 2026 or earlier will no longer be able to save and share Power BI files to One Drive and SharePoint. Please ensure you update Power BI desktop to keep using this functionality.

Reporting

Update your report defaults and use color palettes with the modern visual defaults (Preview)

We've expanded the Modern Visual Defaults preview with a new Customize current theme experience directly in the Format pane. You can now adjust report-wide defaults that apply to all visuals on every page—without manually styling each one. Choose from color palettes to change your report's colors while preserving other customizations or use the expanded visual-level options to style or toggle elements like background, border, header icons, tooltips and shadow on or off across your entire report. You can also fine-tune border thickness, corner radius, and default padding. Every new visual you add automatically inherits your styling, so your report stays consistent as you build.

 

Beyond visuals, you can update page size, background color, and wallpaper across all pages at once, and apply filter pane formatting to current and new pages. These customizations create a custom theme layered on top of your base theme. Styling applied to individual pages or visuals takes precedence, and you can reset any setting to re-enforce the theme defaults. When you're finished, export your custom theme to use in other reports or add it to your organizational themes so others can create uniformly styled reports.

 

The Format pane displays Customize current theme options when no visual is selected, including color palettes you can apply to your report.

To get started, enable the Modern visual defaults and customize theme improvements preview in Options, then when nothing is selected on the page, choose the Customize current theme option in the Format pane. 

Conditional formatting for line charts and legends (Generally Available)

One of the highly requested features from the Power BI community is here: conditional formatting now extends to line charts and visuals with legends. This update applies to bar charts, column charts, pie charts, donut charts, and line charts—when these visuals have a legend, you can conditionally format their colors.

Apply a color measure to ensure consistent segment colors across a donut chart, column chart, and line chart. Use gradient formatting on a line chart to highlight the most recent year while older years fade to grey.

For line charts, format line colors using a gradient based on the total value of each line, or by the category it represents. For example, when overlaying multiple years by month, apply a gradient that displays the most recent year in blue while older years fade to lighter shades of grey. Markers and series labels automatically inherit the conditional formatting until you choose to color them differently.

 

For visuals with category legends, you can ensure consistent colors across your entire report. If multiple visuals use Segment as their legend, color each segment using a single DAX measure. Every visual displays the same color for the same category. When you need to change a segment's color, update the measure once and all visuals reflect the new color instantly.

Report page tab navigation improvements (Generally Available)

Managing reports with many pages is now easier. Previously, when you dragged a page tab to reorder it, you couldn't move it past the visible tabs, making it difficult to move a page from the end of your report to the beginning. Now, when you drag a page tab toward the edge of the tab bar, the tabs continue to scroll until you reach the position where you want to place it. The arrow buttons that page through report tabs are also more precise, ensuring you see each report page tab as you navigate. These improvements make it faster to organize and navigate reports with dozens of pages.

Simplified title spacing for visuals

We've streamlined how spacing works in the title area of your visuals. The spacing properties now use a consistent "space above" approach—Space above subtitle, Space above divider, and Space above plot area—instead of the previous "space below" settings. This makes it easier to understand and control the gaps between title elements, and ensures visuals look consistent even when they have different combinations of subtitle and divider.

Title spacing settings now use consistent “space above” controls for subtitle, divider, and plot area.

Your existing reports and themes automatically adjust to the new settings without any change to their appearance. If you've configured title spacing in a custom theme, we recommend updating it to use the new "space above" properties for clarity and consistency going forward.

Visuals calculations LOOKUP function now supports INFERRED mode for associated columns

The LOOKUP function in visual calculations now accepts an optional AssociatedColumnsBehavior parameter with two values: EXPLICIT (default) and INFERRED. When you use INFERRED, the engine automatically identifies which axis columns are functionally determined by the coordinates you supply and fills them in before evaluating the lookup. This means a lookup that specifies Year, Quarter, and Month can return a value across all rows in the matrix, rather than only on the row where the current context exactly matches.

 

LOOKUP with INFERRED mode returns values across the matrix by automatically inferring associated axis columns from the supplied coordinates.

When the parameter is omitted, LOOKUP behaves exactly as it does today—existing expressions continue to work without changes. When you explicitly supply a value for a column that would have been inferred, LOOKUP validates your value against the inferred value and returns BLANK if they conflict, providing consistent error handling across both modes.

Org apps with audiences (Generally Available)

With support for audiences, app creators can deliver different content experiences to different groups of users within the same app, making it easier to personalize content while managing a single app experience.

 

Navigating audiences in an org app with content shown per audience selected.Bookmarks support for reports in org apps

Users can now access bookmarks when viewing interactive reports in org apps. This includes both report bookmarks created by report authors and personal bookmarks users create for themselves, making it easy to return to saved report views with the filters, selections, and visual state they care about most.

 

Bookmarks dropdown open and highlighted with bookmark selected.

Storytelling (PowerPoint embed) support for reports and visuals in org apps

Reports in org apps now support Storytelling in PowerPoint, allowing users to add live report pages and visuals from org app content into PowerPoint presentations. This extends the existing Storytelling experience to reports distributed through org apps, making it easier to present and share curated content across your organization.

CRUD APIs (REST) for org apps and audiences

Developers and administrators can now programmatically manage org apps and audiences using Microsoft Fabric REST APIs. New APIs support create, read, update, delete, and list operations for both org app items and audience items, enabling automation, deployment, and management scenarios at scale.

CRUD APIs (REST) for paginated reports

Paginated reports can now be managed through Microsoft Fabric REST APIs. New support for create, read, update, delete, and list operations enables developers and administrators to automate report lifecycle management, deployment workflows, and administrative processes.

Modeling

Measure descriptions in line with triple-slash (///) comments

Good descriptions make a semantic model self-documenting. Until now, adding them was a two-step process: you authored your measures in DAX query view, then switched over to Model Explorer just to type the description in.

 

Yet with the latest Desktop release, you can now add measure descriptions right where you write your measures, using the same triple-slash (///) syntax that TMDL already supports for both measure and function descriptions. Add one or more /// comment lines directly above your MEASURE definition, select “Update model with changes”, and the description is written straight into the model along with the measure definition.

 

DEFINE

    /// Year-over-year sales growth, as a percentage.

    /// Returns BLANK when there is no prior-year value.

    MEASURE Sales[YoY Growth %] = ...

Once it’s saved, the description travels with the measure: hover over the measure in DAX query view, in Model Explorer, or in the Data pane, and the description shows up in the tooltip next to the measure name, and it carries through to the quick queries DAX query view generates. Specifically, when you right-click a measure and choose Quick queries, and then select Define and evaluate (or any other Define option), Power BI generates a DEFINE MEASURE statement in DAX Query View that includes the description as /// comments above the measure definition, as in the following screenshot.

 

A measure description in DAX Query View 

It’s a small addition with a nice payoff — descriptions become part of the authoring flow, consistent across measures and UDFs. And it’s non-breaking: if you already use /// inside a measure body, nothing changes there. This is specifically about the comment lines above the MEASURE definition.

Model Options now available in Power BI Service

We’re continuing to bring more semantic modeling capabilities to the web! With this update, the Model options dialog will now be available directly in web modeling, giving you greater control over key modeling-level settings, without needing to switch back to Power BI Desktop.

 

Entry point for accessing Model Options in Model View

The new Options dialog enables you to configure important behaviors and metadata that are defined at the model level (current file) in a centralized experience.

 

Model Options dialog in the web

The new Model Options dialog in web modeling includes the following settings:

• Type detection: enable/disable automatic detection of column types and headers for unstructured sources.
• Relationships: configure auto-detection behavior for relationships in the model.
• Time intelligence: enable/disable automatic creation of hidden date tables.
• Parallel loading of tables: set the concurrency mode used when loading tables.
• Locale for import: set the regional settings used to interpret numbers, dates and time in imported text.
• DirectQuery connections to this semantic model: Toggle whether other semantic models can connect to this semantic model using DirectQuery. When enabled, this model cannot be used as a DirectQuery source.
• (Direct Query only) Maximum connections per data source: limit how many concurrent DirectQuery connections can be opened to a single data source.

New: The semantic model settings pane becomes the default (Preview)

Starting in August, when you open the settings for a semantic model in the Power BI Service, they open in the new settings pane instead of the full settings page. This change updates the default experience: the settings pane opens beside your content, so you can update refresh schedules, credentials, and other options without leaving your workspace or losing your current work context. Everything you manage on the settings page today is available in the pane, so the settings are fully configurable.

 

If you'd rather keep using the legacy settings page, you can switch back at any time from within the pane. The settings pane first arrived in preview in May. Refer to the original semantic model settings pane announcement to learn what it offers and to review how semantic model settings work, refer to Edit Semantic Models In The Power BI Service.

TMDL View on the Web

Now, developers can script, modify, and apply changes to model objects directly in a code editor using Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL), without switching to Desktop or downloading model files.

 

This experience provides immediate, code‑level visibility into all semantic model metadata (tables, measures, relationships, and more), enabling bulk edits, automation of repetitive tasks, and the reuse of definitions to improve consistency and productivity.

 

Previewing semantic model changes from a TMDL script in TMDL View on the web.

Mobile

Org app audiences are now in mobile apps

Org app audiences in the Power BI mobile app extend a tailored org app experience from Power BI Service to users on iOS and Android. With this update, mobile and tablet users can open an org app and see and navigate content based on their assigned audience, so they can quickly find the reports, dashboards, and Power BI content most relevant to their role while on the go.

Audiences in org apps help organizations deliver the right content to the right people from a single governed app experience. Instead of creating and managing multiple apps, app creators can define multiple audiences, control which items each audience sees, and tailor navigation for each group. On mobile, this results in a cleaner, more focused experience on smaller screens.

Executives, managers, frontline workers, and department teams can each land in an app experience curated for their needs while still benefiting from centralized management of a single org app.

 

This update helps close a key gap for customers adopting org apps. Org apps are the recommended way to package and distribute Power BI and Fabric content, and mobile access is essential for users who rely on Power BI away from their desks or in frontline scenarios. Organizations that use audiences to personalize org app content can now extend those tailored experiences to Power BI mobile apps.

 

Org app audiences in the Power BI mobile app showing audience-specific navigation and content.

Third-party custom visuals 

Need more visual options for your report? Power BI reports support custom visuals built to fit your exact needs. Browse hundreds of options in AppSource, also available directly from Power BI Desktop, or develop your own and add it to a single report, share it across your organization, or publish it to AppSource for the community. You can even develop a custom visual tailored to your specific requirements with AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot Free.

 

These are some updates from the community-based custom visuals you can use in your reports today. 

Drill Down Scatter PRO by ZoomCharts

Drill Down Scatter PRO brings a new level of interactivity to scatter chart analysis in Power BI. Users can seamlessly drill down through multiple hierarchy levels, zoom into dense data clusters, and pan across large datasets to investigate trends, outliers, and relationships with precision.

 

The visual helps consumers report from high-level summaries to detailed insights without leaving the report. Advanced features such as dynamic regression lines, area and threshold highlighting, area selection, and lasso selection make it easier to identify patterns, compare segments, and focus on the most relevant data points.

 

With over 200 formatting options, authors can tailor the visual to match business requirements and branding while creating highly engaging analytical experiences.

 

Drill Down Scatter PRO is ideal for customer segmentation, sales performance analysis, operational monitoring, and any scenario where users need to explore large volumes of data interactively. By combining powerful analytics with intuitive navigation, the visual enables faster discovery of actionable insights directly within Power BI. To get started, download it now.

Drill Down Scatter PRO: Explore data at every level with drill-down, zoom, and pan interactions.

 

Drill Down Scatter PRO: Reveal trends and highlight important data with regression lines, thresholds, and selection tools.Neutral variance color in Zebra BI Tables

You're reviewing a Revenue vs Plan report. Anything within ±5% is considered fine, but Actuals are 3% below plan and everything flashes red. The whole dashboard looks alarming.

 

Sound familiar? This is the fix.

 

With Neutral variance color in Zebra BI Tables and Charts, you can now define a tolerance zone where small swings stay neutral. Variances beyond your set limits still turn red or green, so you instantly see where real action is needed.

 

Where it helps:

• Revenue vs. Plan: "Set ±5% tolerance. Q4 revenue at -3%? Stays neutral. Drops to -7%? Turns red."
• Spend vs. Budget: Could we keep the current detail level but add context: "Department at 95% of budget? Neutral. Hits 115% or drops to 85%? Both turn red - overspend wastes money, underspend may signal delivery issues."
• On-time Delivery or HR KPIs: Could we pick one specific example - may be HR? Something like the below?
• Employee Turnover: "Annual target 12% ±2%. At 13.5%? Neutral. At 15%? Red alert."

 

 

 

Now your dashboards reflect reality: not every variance needs a red alert. Instead, you can:

• Focus on what matters: Stop investigating variances within acceptable limits.
• Align with business rules: Your CFO says ±5% is fine, your dashboard should too.
• Achieve faster executive reviews: Leadership can scan dashboards and immediately spot true outliers.

Heatmap by Powerviz

The Powerviz Heatmap visualizes data density and value distribution using color gradients, transforming complex datasets into an intuitive matrix format. It is ideal for identifying patterns, correlations, and outliers, aiding data-driven decision-making.

 

Key Features:

• Shapes: Choose from Default, Fixed, or Diverging built-in shapes. 
• Data Colors: Offers 30+ palettes, color-blind mode, and custom color options. 
• Data Labels: Select from different styles available or add custom labels with formatting. 
• Grid Lines: Improve data readability with visual grid lines. 
• Reference Lines: Highlight key points using X-axis and Y-axis lines. 
• Totals: Display row and column totals with advanced bar customization.
• Null Values: Customize null values (Blank /NA / Null/ ”0”) and their styling.
• Small Multiples: Split visuals into smaller ones using selected fields. 
• Conditional Formatting: Spot outliers with Value/ Percentage/ Ranking based rules.
• Ranking: Filter Top/Bottom N rows or columns.

Other features included Axis Settings, Grid View, Sorting, Show Condition and more.

 

Explore new features, uncover clearer insights, and elevate your Power BI storytelling with the enhanced Heatmap by Powerviz.

 

From custom shapes to conditional formatting - every feature is designed to make your heatmap more interactive, flexible, and insightful. Gantt by Profitbase

Reviewing a project plan, stakeholders rely on color to quickly identify at-risk tasks, and owner-specific highlights. Version 3.1 of Gantt by Profitbase lets you apply conditional formatting rules independently to specific levels of your hierarchy.

 

Gantt by Profitbase overview.