Microsoft has just released its December update of Power BI updates to both Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service. Here are some of the latest features included in the release. These are just some of the features – see the link above for the complete list.

New Data Entry Feature

One of the key challenges in any BI solution is seems to be one piece of data that isn’t in a system – it needs to be data entered by people.

Power BI Desktop now supports the ability to copy and paste data into a table or to dynamically create a table on the fly and data enter the data into it.

Changing Decimal Places and Text Sizes in Visuals

In Power BI Desktop, you can now format the number of decimal places and text size in visuals.

Improved Layout of Visuals and Format Painter

One of the key missing features in Power BI Desktop was basic alignment of visuals on the dashboard. With this release you can align, distribute and size dashboards

You can also now format multiple dashboards using the Format Painter as well.

New Stacked Area Chart

R Visuals Integration

Power BI Desktop will now support R visuals within dashboards (in preview). Using R scripts, you can use R’s plotting capabilities to create visualizations and integrate them into the dashboard.

Support for Live SSAS Multidimensional Hierarchies

Power BI Desktop will now support live exploration of SSAS multidimensional model hierarchies and use these within their reports for drill down.