Power BI Updates: URL parameters; SQL Server 2019; Custom branding; Shared Datasets; Mobile apps

As Microsoft and many in the Northern Hemisphere marked the end of summer vacations, the Power BI team held off on extensive updates but managed to roll out a few new changes over the final weeks of August. Some examples of changes made during the month include grouping visuals, conditional formatting warnings, support for SAP HANA HDI containers, PostgreSQL DirectQuery and others.

With the return of New Feature Friday on August 29, principal program manager Christopher Finlan announced support for URL parameters for Power BI paginated reports. The capability lets users add parameters to a URL and send commands to paginated reports. "[You can] even construct this URL dynamically in a Power BI report and drillthrough to a paginated report by using a DAX measure," he wrote.

Users need to add the tag rp: for Power BI to recognize the URL and URL values will closely mirror those of SQL Server Reporting Services. The URL will store information about the paginated report's export format.

Finlan also detailed changes for SQL Server 2019 Reporting Services RC1. Although the team previously released updates for Power BI Report Server, this is first part of the 2019 release wave for SQL Server Reporting Services. The release includes a new deployment option with close to 100 percent compatibility with Azure SQL Database, with Managed Instance hosting, Power BI Premium dataset support, or a Report Builder update compatible with versions back to 2019. Alternative text support for report elements is also part of the package.

Custom branding is available for Power BI as of August 27, supporting changes such as theme colors, cover images or company logos. The feature is accessible via the custom branding tab in the Power BI admin portal. Microsoft recommends choosing high contrast theme colors and uploading logos as PNG files.