Microsoft Fabric February 2024 Update
Welcome to the February 2024 update.
We have a lot of great features this month including Fabric Git Integration REST APIs, Fabric notebook status bar upgrade, Copilot in Dataflow Gen2, and many more!
Fabric Community Conference
Join us at the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference the ultimate Microsoft Data & AI learning event, on March 26-28, 2024, at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas. With over 150 sessions for everyone who works with Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, SQL, Azure AI, and Purview, the conference promises a rich learning experience.
This is a unique opportunity to meet the Microsoft product teams building these technologies, the customers betting their businesses on them, and the partners that are at the forefront of deployment and adoption. Engage with this vibrant community, learn from their real-world experiences, stay abreast of the latest developments.
Please note that this event is in-person only. Sessions will not be recorded, streamed or made available for on-demand consumption.
Register today using code MSCUST for an exclusive discount! Need help convincing your boss to attend? No problem! Use this letter to share with your boss about this unforgettable opportunity.
Contents
- Reporting
- Modeling
- Data connectivity
- Service
- Mobile
- Developers
- Visualizations
- Purview
- Core
- OneLake
- Domains in OneLake
- Git Integration
- Synapse
- Data Engineering
- Data Science
- Real-time Analytics
- KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support name-based column mapping
- KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support deletion vectors
- Get Data in KQL DB now supports processing events before ingestion via Eventstream
- KQL DB now supports data ingestion using Apache Flink
- Route data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to KQL DB using Kusto Splunk Universal Connector
- Data Factory
Reporting
Visual calculations 
A new way of doing calculations has arrived! You can now add calculations directly on your visual using visual calculations, which are DAX calculations that are defined and executed directly on a visual. A calculation can refer to any data in the visual, including columns, measures, or other visual calculations. This approach removes the complexity of the semantic model and simplifies the process of writing DAX. You can use visual calculations to complete common business calculations such as running sums or moving averages. Visual calculations make it easy to do calculations that were previously very hard or even almost impossible to do.
To use visual calculations while in preview, you need to enable it in Options and Settings > Options > Preview features. Select visual calculations and select OK. Visual calculations will be enabled after Desktop is restarted.
To add a visual calculation, you first need to select a visual. Next, select the New calculation button in the ribbon:
To add a visual calculation, type the expression in the formula bar in the visual calculations edit mode that opens. For example, in a visual that contains Sales Amount and Total Product Cost by Fiscal Year, you can add a visual calculation that calculates the profit for each year by simply typing: Profit = [Sales Amount] – [Total Product Cost].
Additionally, you can easily add a running sum of profit by writing:
Running sum profit = RUNNINGSUM([Profit])
Here is a visual with the two visual calculations we have just created:
You can use many existing DAX functions in visual calculations. Functions specific to visual calculations are also available, such as RUNNINGSUM, PREVIOUS and MOVINGAVERAGE. Using these and other functions, visual calculations are much easier to read, write and maintain than the current DAX required.
We are only just getting started with this preview. There is a lot more that we have planned, so please stay tuned for updates in future releases. However, we invite you to jump in now!
For more information, read the dedicated blog post and documentation. Please try the preview today and let us know what you think.
Dynamic subscriptions for Power BI reports
Dynamic per recipient subscriptions is now available in Preview for Power BI reports! Like dynamic subscriptions for paginated reports, you can now distribute a personalized copy of a Power BI report to each recipient of an email subscription.
Imagine you have a report that includes sales data for your entire team. You want to schedule an email subscription that sends out a PDF copy of this report to each salesperson on a weekly basis, with the report filtered to only show their sales results.
This can now be done by connecting to a semantic model (previously Power BI dataset) that defines the mapping between recipients and respective filter values. When it’s time to send out the report, the latest data available in your semantic model will determine which employees should receive a report in their inbox, and with what filter values applied.
See the documentation for dynamic subscriptions here.
On-object Interaction Updates
This February release we added multi-visual container format support! Previously, when multi-selecting across different visual types, the format pane did not support any options for formatting the visuals. Now, when multi-selecting different visuals, we’ve added formatting support for container formatting such as changing the size, background color, adding a shadow or turning on/off titles in bulk.
When multi-selecting different visual types (e.g. a line chart and bar chart):
|
Before No formatting options shown |
|
Now with On-object Visual container options are available |
We’ve also added the ability to format a visual’s container size and position even if it’s empty:
| Before
No formatting options shown |
|
Now with On-object Visual container size and position are available |
This month we also bring you a handful of quality improvements to the on-object experience:
- Bug fix: when working with a non-visual (text box, button, image, shape) the build pane accidentally closing automatically. The build pane now stays open unless explicitly closed regardless of selected item type.
- Bug fix: style bug where the build pane was showing 5 icons across instead of the usual 6 has been fixed.
- Bug fix: in some cases, the data flyout was extending beyond the window size making the search box hard to use, this has now been fixed.
- Enhancement: When choosing a field using the data flyout – you can now click anywhere on the name, not just the checkbox next to it to select the field.
- Enhancement: If replacing a field in a visual that does not use an aggregation or date hierarchy (other dropdowns are disabled), we auto open the data dropdown to save an extra click.
Power BI Home in Desktop is Enabled by Default
We are excited to announce the new and improved Power BI Home as the default experience! The Power BI Home has been redesigned to provide a centralized and familiar location for all your Power BI activities within the desktop application. Our aim is to enhance your productivity and make it easier to discover and consume content.
With Power BI Home, you no longer need to navigate through multiple menus or tabs to access your files and reports. This intuitive interface serves as a hub, like other popular office products, where you can effortlessly manage your reports, all from a single location.
Whether you’re a seasoned Power BI user or new to the platform, Power BI Home ensures a consistent and seamless experience across all your Power BI activities.
Now, you can:
- Initiate a new report directly from the new home screen.
- Access reports from recommendations that we have curated.
- Locate your most recent reports through the Quick Access lists.
Please continue to submit your feedback directly in the comments of this blog post or in our feedback forum.
Enhanced Reference Layer in Power BI Azure Maps Visual
We’re excited to introduce a significant enhancement to the Power BI Azure Maps visual reference layer feature. In response to valuable user feedback and in alignment with evolving industry standards, we have expanded the capabilities of the reference layer. Now, in addition to supporting the existing GeoJSON format, users can also utilize KML (Keyhole Markup Language) and WKT (Well-Known Text) formats.
We’re also adding URL as a data source alongside file upload. This addition offers users even more flexibility and convenience in importing spatial data into Power BI. Whether your data resides in GeoJSON, KML, WKT, or through a URL link, the Power BI Azure Maps visual seamlessly integrates these formats, ensuring a comprehensive and versatile geospatial analysis experience.
Modeling
Measure descriptions with Copilot
Add descriptions to your semantic model measures with Fabric Copilot for Power BI! People building reports from your semantic model can see the name and description of your measures, making the description property essential documentation. And Fabric Copilot is here to help!
Streamline your semantic model documentation by creating measure descriptions with Copilot.
1. Click on the model measure in the Data pane of Model view to see the measure properties.
2. Click on the Create with Copilot (preview) button under the Description textbox.
3. Review the measure description from Copilot, then click Keep it.
4. Now the measure description is in the Description box. Fine tune the description, as needed.
5. You update the measure later? No worries, just click the button again when you need the description updated!
Try this out today and let us know what you think! Get started today by turning on this public preview feature in Options > Preview features and learning more about how to get access to Fabric Copilot for Power BI on your tenant at https://learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-introduction#copilot-requirements.
DAX query view improvements
We released the public preview of DAX query view in November 2023, and in this release, we made the following improvements:
- Boolean values are now showing in the Results grid.
- A share feedback link has been added in Options > Preview features. We would love to hear your feedback on DAX query view!
- A bug causing active query tab to stop being highlighted is fixed.
- A bug with close brackets of a nested IFs DAX formula is fixed.
And we have released additional INFO DAX functions.
- INFO.CHANGEDPROPERTIES()
- INFO.EXCLUDEDARTIFACTS()
- INFO.FUNCTIONS()
- INFO.LINGUISTICMETADATA()
Learn more about DAX query view at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/dax-query-view.
Data connectivity
Certified connectors updates
SingleStore, we’re thrilled to inform you that our connector has now officially moved out of beta. We want to express our gratitude for your valuable feedback and for being an essential part of our beta journey. Your insights have played a crucial role in shaping the enhancements we’ve made.
This upgrade comes with an exciting new feature – you can now cancel running queries, hassle-free. No more queries running in the background after you refresh the UI/visual or navigate across the pages in the report.
Our team is dedicated to continuously improving and adding even more useful features to enhance your experience. Thank you for your ongoing support, and we can’t wait to continue providing you with top-notch features that elevate your data connectivity and reporting capabilities.
Service
Storytelling in PowerPoint – Replace report URLs with shareable links in Power BI add-in
When you add the Power BI add-in to a presentation, you can pick a report suggested to you or paste a link to a specific report.
When you paste a standard report link (the URL copied from the browser address bar), and if sharable links are enabled for your organization and allowed for this report, you have re-share permissions to this report, Power BI add-in can replace the link you pasted with shareable link. In that case you will see a checkbox added below the report URL that offers you automatic access to this report. Just mark this checkbox and Power BI add-in will create a shareable link for you.
Using a sharable link ensures that other users viewing the presentation have the required permission to see the report, and do not need to request access when viewing the presentation.
Data overview in Explore
Have you tried out the new Explore feature yet? This month we added a data overview feature to Explore that allows you to get the “gist” of what your data is all about. Powered by Copilot, data overview gives you a summary of what’s contained in the data you’re exploring and highlights some interesting tidbits to get you started. Let us know what you think!
DirectQuery connections update
Maximum connections per data source is a setting to configure the maximum number of connections DirectQuery opens for each underlying data source. This controls the maximum number of queries that can be executed concurrently against each data source and is configurable per semantic model.
We recently updated the upper limit of the number of concurrent Direct Query connections allowed per semantic model. The updated limits for each SKU are listed in the table below.
| Fabric SKUs | Power BI SKUs | Max concurrent DirectQuery connections (per semantic model) |
| F2 | – | 5 |
| F4 | – | 5 |
| F8 | EM1/A1 | 10 |
| F16 | EM2/A2 | 10 |
| F32 | EM3/A3 | 10 |
| F64 | P1/A4 | 50 |
| F128 | P2/A5 | 75 |
| F256 | P3/A6 | 100 |
| F512 | P4/A7 | 200 |
| F1024 | P5/A8 | 200 |
| F2048 | – | 200 |
The upper limit for Power BI PPU is 100 active connections. Note that there is no change to the Power BI Pro and Report Server limits and the default maximum value remains as 10 concurrent connections.
Mobile
Shared device mode is now GA!
Introduced last September, shared device mode is now generally available! With shared device mode, organizations can safely deploy the Power BI mobile app across their pool of shared devices. Check it out!
Developers
Power BI Custom Visuals New Local Storage API
This API allows Custom Visuals to store data directly in the local browser. Data stored locally is more secure and improves the performance of web apps. The API will be controlled by a global admin setting. Learn more about the API.
On-object interaction support for custom visuals
Our February release introduces the support of the new on-object interaction. This enhancement allows users to build and customize visuals directly on the visual in Power BI Desktop. It puts common actions for creating and formatting visuals on the visuals themselves, actions such as adding fields, changing visualization types, and formatting text.
TMDL in Power BI Desktop Developer Mode
The primary objective of Power BI Desktop developer mode is to provide friendly source control and co-development experience. With this objective in mind, you can now save your Power BI Project files (PBIP) using Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) format. TMDL is easily readable and editable in any text editor. It was designed for humans and is collaborative by default with its native folder structure.
Saving as a PBIP using TMDL is currently in preview. Before giving it a try, you must first enable this feature in Preview features: go to File > Options and settings > Options > Preview features and check the box next to “Store semantic model using TMDL format”.
After enabling the preview feature, when saving as PBIP, your semantic model will be saved as a TMDL folder named “\definition”:
Existing PBIP files can also be easily converted to TMDL by simply opening them and selecting “Upgrade” in the upgrade popup during the save process:
During the Public Preview, Fabric Git Integration will still export the semantic model as Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL) by default. However, if the semantic model is imported into Fabric using TMDL, then Fabric Git Integration will use TMDL when exporting the definition into Git.
Learn more about TMDL in Power BI Desktop developer mode here.
Visualizations
Editor’s pick of the quarter
- Inforiver Analytics+ (Charts+Cards+Tables)
- Inforiver Premium Matrix / Table
- Drill Down Donut PRO (Filter) by ZoomCharts
- Date Picker
- Enlighten Aquarium
- Deneb: Declarative Visualization in Power BI
- Icon Map
New visuals in AppSource
- Comment – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Reporting – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Variance – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Matrix planning – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Copy – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Table edit – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Graphical planning – Dynamics 365 Finance business performance planning
- Waterfall-Visual-Extended
- Processifier Process Mining
- flashbi fantail
- UnAvoids
- Map by Squillion
- Charticulator Visual Community (View)
Multiple Sparklines
New features were added to Multiple Sparklines on Oct 23
- When you double click a line chart, it will zoom in to screen size of visual and you can then compare it with any other line chart in that column.
- You can use different colors for each line chart in a field/column.
- You can insert ratings with bands.
- You can add beeswarm / distribution microchart.
Once you double click the line chart, it zooms in to the visual size. You can then compare it with another line chart in the same column. This is shown below:
Download this visual from APPSOURCE
For more information visit https://www.excelnaccess.com/sparklines/
or contact zubair@excelnaccess.com
Rose Donut Pie Chart by Powerviz
Rose/Donut/Pie Chart is a powerful visual that lets you build four types of charts – a rose, a rose donut, a donut, and a pie chart. These chart types are commonly used to display part-to-whole relationships, proportions of categorical data, and ratios. Each arc represents the ratio from the total for easy comparison.
Key Features:
- Chart Options: Rose, donut, pie charts with style customization.
- Data Colors: Choose from 30+ palettes, including color-blind mode.
- Fill Patterns: Apply patterns or use custom images.
- Smart Labels: Improve readability with data and leaf labels.
- Arc Customization: Easily adjust arc radius, padding, and stroke.
- Ranking: Filter Top/Bottom N, show others intelligently.
- Center Circle: Multiple layers, text, icons, and images in the center.
- Mouseover Text: Display dynamic details when hovering over arcs.
- Image Labels: Integrate dynamic image URLs for enhanced visuals.
- Conditional Formatting: Detect outliers and set smart rules for measures/categories.
Other features included are annotation, grid view, show condition, and accessibility support.
Business Use Cases: Finance, Healthcare, E-commerce, Education, Customer Demographics
🔗 Try Rose/Donut/Pie Chart for FREE from AppSource
📊 Check out all features of the visual: Demo file
📃 Step-by-step instructions: Documentation
💡 YouTube Video: Video Link
📍 Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/
✅ Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U
xViz Gantt Chart by Lumel
xViz Gantt Chart by Lumel is a Microsoft Power BI Certified Visual. As the most feature rich Gantt in Power BI – it is widely used across most Fortune 500 companies world-wide.
Why Large Enterprises Choose xViz Gantt Chart:
Real-time Alerts for Project Managers: Leverage Conditional Formatting to receive color-coded alerts and status flags, ensuring timely awareness of schedule delays or progress issues.
Visualize Task Dependencies: Easily identify causes of delays with the ability to plot task dependencies using connectors within the roadmap view.
Adaptable for Different Users: From Stakeholders tracking yearly progress to Project Managers analyzing monthly views and Developers scrutinizing smaller time grains with flexibility across three distinct timeline levels.
Strategic Planning with Reference Lines and Ranges: Utilize Reference Lines and Ranges to mark crucial dates, holidays, sprints, or deadlines across projects.
Customization Galore: Wide range of customizable options, including adjustable timeline limits, selectable week start days, and indentation customization for ragged hierarchies.
Hassle-Free Licensing: The visual is free for use in Power BI Desktop. For sharing & collaborating on Power BI service, the licenses can be purchased directly from Microsoft AppSource.
Try xViz Gantt Chart today after watching the 2-minute video highlights.
Control Chart XmR by Nova Silva
Years ago, Stacey Barr introduced us to the magic of Control Charts. Magic it is, because it allows everyone to split their temporal data in two: random noise and real signals. And we all are looking for real signals, and don’t want to be distracted by random noise.
In our last release of the Control Chart XmR we have added several new features to make it even easier to find real signals and ignore random noise in your data.
First, we added a feature to allow any report consumer to override the applied rules. This allows everyone to analyze the effects of one specific rule or set of rules.
Several customers asked for a possibility to download the calculated values from the visual. Now you can download all values calculated by the Control Chart XmR, like: LCL, CL, UCL, sigmas and signals.
Don’t hesitate and try the new Control Chart XmR now on your own data by downloading it from the AppSource. All features are available for free to evaluate this visual within Power BI Desktop.
Questions or remarks? Visit us at: https://visuals.novasilva.com/.
Drill Down Graph PRO
Drill Down Graph PRO lets you create elegant and user-friendly graphs to represent complex relationships between nodes. It’s ideal for both small and large network graphs and offers advanced features like cross-chart filtering and vast customization options. You can create hierarchies and explore them using this visual’s intuitive interactions.
Main features include:
- Multiple layout options – dynamic, hierarchical, and radial
- Focus nodes mode – for gradual exploration of graphs
- Customization options – choose colors, shapes, images, and labels
- Bidirectional links – show reciprocal relationships between nodes
- Touch device support – explore your data anywhere
Popular use cases:
- IT – asset management, IT infrastructure, IoT monitoring
- Logistics – fleet management, stock management, parcel tracking
- Sales & Marketing – community detection, account management, web analytics
ZoomCharts Drill Down Visuals are known for interactive drilldowns, smooth animations, and rich customization options. They support interactions, selections, custom and native tooltips, filtering, bookmarks, and context menu. Use them to create visually appealing and intuitive reports that business users will love on any device.
Get Drill Down Graph PRO from AppSource!
Learn more about Drill Down Graph PRO by ZoomCharts.
Purview
More users can now collaborate with protected PBIX in Power BI desktop
Have you ever wondered how to collaborate with your colleagues on sensitive data without compromising its security? Do you want to learn how to use Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels to protect your data?
If so, you’re in the right place! We’ll show you how to use sensitivity labels with protection to encrypt and protect your data, and how to enable more users to edit and republish encrypted PBIX files. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to collaborate more securely with your data in Power BI.
Protecting your data with Microsoft Purview
Compliance admins in your organization can use Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels to manage their org’s sensitive data across different apps and services and meet regulatory and compliance requirements.
They define file protection policies for the sensitivity labels, which result in files being encrypted when such labels are applied, allowing only authorized users to open and edit these files in Office apps and Power BI Desktop.
Sensitivity labels are widely adopted by enterprises today and used to label and protect content in Microsoft 365 apps such as Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, and now in Power BI and Fabric as well.
All you have to do is enable Information Protection in Microsoft Fabric’s Admin Portal and let the labels do the rest.
How Power BI Desktop enforces sensitivity label protection
In Power BI Desktop, we enforce label protection on PBIX files. To open a PBIX file, you either must be the label issuer or have one of the following usage rights.
These usage rights are elevated permissions, as they grant permission to change the sensitivity label. Because Power BI and Office apps use the same label policies, compliance admins may prefer not to grant these usage rights for Highly confidential labels. This might block you from collaborating with your colleagues when you’re sharing or downloading Power BI reports and trying to open them in the desktop app.
Collaborating and keeping label protection on PBIX files
By enabling “More users in your organization to edit and republish encrypted PBIX” in your tenant, users that have been assigned with all of the following usage rights should be able to open, edit, and republish the protected PBIX file to the Power BI service:
- View Content (VIEW)
- Edit Content (DOCEDIT)
- Save (EDIT)
- Copy and extract content (EXTRACT)
- Allow Macros (OBJMODEL)
Thus, users who were once restricted can now collaborate with protected files, while keeping protection consistent with the organizational policy.
Note: These usage rights are a sub-set of the “Co-Author” permissions preset in Microsoft Purview compliance center.
What are the restrictions and why?
In order to align with compliance requirements, users with these usage rights are lightly restricted while editing a protected PBIX file.
No exporting to unsupported formats –The user won’t be able to export to formats that don’t support sensitivity labels, such as CSV files.
No label change – The user can’t change the label on the PBIX file.
Republishing to the original workspace only
Why restrict republishing into the original workspace only?
To remain compliant, we must keep users from gaining more permissions, including Power BI permissions (i.e., Read, Write, Reshare and Build). Meaning that a user who wishes to publish should not be able to publish to a workspace that might grant them additional permission through Workspace roles.
Additionally, this feature is meant for collaborating and sharing items that are more restricted than usual, and confidential data is usually managed in a dedicated workspace. This restriction will prevent users from publishing confidential data across the tenant.
Side note: The file must be published at least once for other users to be able to republish it to that specific workspace. If the file has not yet been published, then the latest label issuer (the one who set the protected label) or a user with sufficient usage rights must publish it and then share the file with the other editors.
How to enable it
Prerequisite: The compliance admin must assign you and your colleagues the proper permissions for that sensitivity label.
Next, Fabric/Power BI admins must enable the feature in Admin Portal > Information protection > Increase the number of users who can edit and republish encrypted PBIX files (preview).
In Power BI Desktop, users who would like to open and edit protected PBIX files must enable the feature by opening File > Options and settings > Options > Preview feature > Less elevated user support.
Final words
With this new feature, users can now collaborate more easily with other users when working on confidential data in Power BI Desktop, without any loss of protection along the way.
Core
Customizable Navigation Pane
This new feature allows users to customize their preferred entry points on the left navigation bar. With this feature, users can now easily unpin the entry points they don’t need by simply right-clicking on them, freeing up more space for the content they focus on. Even though an entry point is unpinned, it remains accessible through the three dots overflow menu in the left navigation bar. And if users need to pin an entry point back, they can easily do so from the overflow menu.
We hope this new feature will make navigating our platform even more efficient and personalized for our users.
Persistent filters in workspace
With persistent filters in workspace, you can save selected filters in workspace list view. And they will be automatically applied the next time you open the workspace. You don’t have to repeat the same steps every time to see the items you care about in your daily work. You can also easily add and remove filters or clear all applied filters to set the list view back to default state.
OneLake
Domains in OneLake
Domains in OneLake help you organize your data into a logical data mesh, allowing federated governance and optimizing for business needs.
We recently introduced:
- Sub domains (public preview) for better structuring.
- Set up the domain as default for users and security groups (public preview), this capability will help keeping the relevant data under the relevant domain without additional work from the tenant or domain admins.
- Move To (Public preview) enables admins to select one or multiple workspaces and to easily move them between sub domains and domains without the need for unassign and reassign to the correct place.
- Domains REST APIs for Admin (public preview).
Create subdomains
To create subdomains for a domain, open the domain you want to create a subdomain for and select New subdomain.
Provide a name for the subdomain in the new subdomain dialog that appears. When done, select Create.
Note – Subdomains don’t have their own domain admins. A subdomain’s admins are the domain admins of its parent domain.
Configure Default Domain–
Select Domains settings –
Select Default domain (preview) and specify users and/or security groups. When the specified users and/or security groups create new workspaces, or update unassigned workspaces, those workspaces will automatically be assigned to the domain. This capability helps keep the relevant data under the relevant domain without additional work from the tenant or domain admins.
Move WS between domains or sub domains
Select the WS you would like to move (you can select one or more)
Select the destination and click on Move Here
The WS will be assigned to the selected destination.
Learn more about the available API’s here, and about domains and all the value they provide here – Easily implement data mesh architecture with domains in Fabric | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric.
Git Integration
Fabric Git Integration REST APIs
We are thrilled to announce the public availability of the highly anticipated REST APIs for Fabric Git integration! This new set of APIs enables seamless incorporation of Fabric Git integration into your team’s end-to-end CI/CD pipeline, eliminating the need for manual triggering of actions from Fabric. The APIs encompass capabilities such as connecting a workspace to Git, committing changes to Git, updating changes from Git, retrieving the status of items in the workspace, and more.
In addition to the APIs, we have also introduced several PowerShell samples to facilitate a quick start with Git integration APIs in your workflow.
Check out the full blog post for more details and all the resources.
Delegation for Git integration settings
Until now, all Git related settings could only be enabled or disabled by the tenant admin, for all workspaces and capacities. This includes enabling Git integration, controlling cross-region connections, and controlling export of items with sensitivity labels.
To enable more control over these settings, a tenant admin can now delegate these settings to both capacity admins and workspace admins.
This means that once delegated by the tenant admin, the admin of each resource can decide on their own whether to enable a setting or not.
In the example pictured below, a tenant admin has disabled from the admin portal the ability to connect to repositories in a geographic location different to that of the workspace, but enabled delegation of this capability to workspace admins:
With these settings in place, by default workspaces cannot be connected to repositories in different regions than those of the tenant. However, within the workspace settings, any workspace admin can view this default configuration or choose to enable the capability for all or some of their workspace members:
Learn more here on the Git integration settings, and how to enable delegation.
Synapse
Data Warehouse
In our continued commitment to providing a streamlined, efficient, and user-friendly data warehousing experience in Fabric, we have released several improvements related to connectivity and performance. One of the notable enhancements is the improved experience for creating warehouses, which has been made more intuitive and user-friendly. Additional improvements in the areas of T-SQL execution, automatic metadata discovery and error messaging make it easier for customers to load and process their data in Fabric quickly and efficiently.
Data Engineering
Browse code snippet
We are excited to introduce a new notebook feature: Browse code snippet. This feature allows you to easily access and insert code snippets for commonly used code snippets with multiple supported languages. You can also learn the best practices that are recommended by Fabric and improve your coding skills of using Fabric Notebook.
With browse code snippet, you can:
- Find the code snippet you need by searching keywords or browsing categories.
- Filter code snippets by language.
- Preview the code snippet and see its description, syntax, and usage.
- Insert the code snippet into your Notebook cell with one click or copy it to the clipboard.
You can find “Browse code snippet” it from “Edit” tab.
Configure session timeout
Notebook now supports configuring session timeout for the current live session. It can help you avoid wasting resources or losing context due to timeout. With a set session timeout, you can:
- Specify the maximum duration of your spark sessions, from minutes to hours.
- Get alerts before the session expires and extend it with a single click.
To use set session timeout, you can click on the upgraded cell status bar on notebook.
And click the “Extend” button to configure the current session timeout value.
Fabric notebook status bar upgrade
We are excited to announce the new version of Fabric Notebook status bar, this upgrade contains a couple of useful features and shortcuts that can help you easily find the relevant info and navigate back and forth!
The new status bar has 3 persisted info buttons, they are.
- Session status
- Save status
- Cell selection status
Moreover, it also contains a few contextualized features that can be triggered under certain situations, they are:
- Git connection state when your workspace is connected with Git.
- Extend session shortcuts (supported in Spark runtime 3.4) when your session is about to expire.
- Failed cell navigator when your notebook has failed cells.
Check out the Fabric Monthly Update video for a demo to learn the usage!
Data Science
Copilot in Fabric (preview) is available worldwide
During November 2023, we unveiled the public preview of Copilot in Microsoft Fabric. This preview includes Copilot for Power BI, Data Factory and Data Science & Data Engineering. Since then, we have been gradually rolling this feature out and today, we are excited to announce that our Copilot preview is now available to all customers!
To access the Copilot in Fabric, you must have a paid SKUs (F64 or higher, or P1 or higher) with capacity available in the following Fabric regions and your tenant administrator needs to enable Copilot. This can be done with a new tenant setting group, “Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)”, in the admin portal. Enable Copilot for Microsoft Fabric (preview).
Since December 2023, we shipped a new feature that allows tenant admins to enable AI and Copilot in Fabric for specific security groups in addition to the entire organization. This means that Copilot can now be tailored to the needs of different groups within your organization. More granular AI and Copilot setting on Capacity level is coming.
Real-time Analytics
KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support name-based column mapping
Column mapping feature allows Delta table columns and the underlying Parquet file columns to use different names. This enables Delta schema evolution operations such on a Delta table without the need to rewrite the underlying Parquet files and allows users to name Delta table columns by using characters that are not allowed by Parquet.
KQL DB now supports reading Delta tables with column name mappings. Delta Lake table format interoperability – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support deletion vectors
Deletion vectors are a storage optimization feature that can be enabled on Delta Lake tables. With deletion vectors enabled for the table, DELETE and UPDATE operations use deletion vectors to mark existing rows as removed or changed without rewriting the Parquet file.
KQL DB can now read delta tables with deletion vectors, resolving the current table state by applying the deletions noted by deletion vectors to the most recent table version. Delta Lake table format interoperability – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
Get Data in KQL DB now supports processing events before ingestion via Eventstream
The Process event before ingestion in Eventstream option enables you to process the data before it’s ingested into the destination table. By selecting this option, the get data process seamlessly continues in Eventstream, with the destination table and data source details automatically populated. Get data from Eventstream – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
KQL DB now supports data ingestion using Apache Flink
Apache Flink is a framework and distributed processing engine for stateful computations over unbounded and bounded data streams. The Kusto connector for Flink is an open-source project that can run on any Flink cluster. It implements a data sink for moving data from a Flink cluster to an Azure Data Explorer table. Using Azure Data Explorer and Apache Flink, you can build fast and scalable applications targeting data driven scenarios. For example, machine learning (ML), Extract-Transform-Load (ETL), and Log Analytics. Ingest data with Apache Flink into KQL DB
Route data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to KQL DB using Kusto Splunk Universal Connector
Splunk Universal Forwarder is a lightweight version of the Splunk Enterprise software that allows you to ingest data from many sources simultaneously. It’s designed for collecting and forwarding log data and machine data from various sources to a central Splunk Enterprise server or a Splunk Cloud deployment. Splunk Universal Forwarder serves as an agent that simplifies the process of data collection and forwarding, making it an essential component in Splunk deployment. You can now use the Kusto Splunk Universal Connector to send data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to a table in your KQL DB. Ingest data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to KQL DB
Data Factory
Dataflow Gen2
Copilot in Dataflow Gen2
We are excited to announce the public preview of Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric, which is now included in the Dataflow Gen2 experience. Copilot for Data Factory is an AI-enhanced assistant that supports both citizen and professional data wranglers in streamlining their workflow by providing intelligent Power Query mashup code generation to transform data with ease and generating code explanations to help users better understand complex data cleansing tasks. To use Copilot, you’ll need access to a workspace that has a P1 or higher or a F64 or higher capacity.
Supported capabilities:
- Generate new transformation steps for an existing query.
- Ex. “Convert the temperature column to Celsius.”
- Provide an explanation of a query or applied steps.
- Ex. “Describe the Trips query”
- Generate a new query that may include sample data or a reference to an existing query.
- Ex. “Create a new query that is a calendar table starting from 2020 to current date with lots of columns to slice and dice my data with.”
Check out the Copilot for Data Factory Docs for complete instructions and requirements and don’t hesitate to leave a comment in the Fabric Community site if you have any questions.
Certified Connector updates
The Power Query SDK enables you to create new connectors for both Power BI and Dataflow experiences. With a robust set of tools to allow you to define a custom experience for your users when connecting to your data source and how they should be seen in the Power Query experience, you can see what some of our partners have been able to accomplish and delivered inside of Power BI and Dataflows today.
This month we’re glad to release new updates for the following certified connectors:
- FactSetAnalytics
- AutodeskConstructionCloud
- EmplifyMetrics
- SingleStoreODBC
- SolarWindsServiceDesk
- Dremio
- BitSightSecurityRatings
Be sure to check the documentation of the connectors to find out more about them from the Power Query Connectors reference.
Data Pipeline
Connector updates
We’re excited to announce new connectors are available in your Data Factory data pipelines!
In your data pipeline, you can now create a new connection to your Amazon S3 Compatible data source to copy, extract, and transform your data.
You can also now connect to your Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Compatible, or Google Cloud Storage data destinations.
For more information on data pipeline connectors, please read Data pipeline connectors in Microsoft Fabric – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn.
