【 update 】Power BI Desktop is available in January 2019. The Power BI API is available with the service body!

Embedded analysis

AUTOMATION & Life-cycle Management

• Use the Power BI API with the service body

  In the new release, Power BI authentication with service principals (also known as App-only authentication) is supported and is now available in the public preview. Service principals can replace primary users and help customers build more powerful solutions when they go into production:

  1. Easier to create. Applications can be automatically registered, and anyone with the appropriate permissions can add a new application to a security group that allows use of a service principal.
  2. There is no need to purchase a Power BI Pro license for the service principal (although users with a Pro license with access to the Power BI portal are recommended).




• Schedule a refresh API

  Power BI enables the data set owner to configure the refresh schedule. Refresh plan Refreshes data at a specified time and frequency.

  

  The new REST API can set a new refresh plan or override the configuration of an existing plan. You can also retrieve plans for datasets using the Fetch Plan Refresh API. This API is useful for setting up or updating plans on many datasets, because it allows you to use scripts instead of manually configuring each dataset. The API is also useful if you want to make automatic changes based on specific triggers. For example, multiple failed flusher will disable scheduled flusher. With the new API, you can enable the refresh schedule again without having to execute it manually.

• Schedule a DirectQuery cache flush

  A data set used to connect to a data source in DirectQuery or Live Connection. However, the dashboard patch from a report using DirectQuery still caches the data and refreshes the data at a defined frequency. You can now use the REST API to set up DirectQuery or cache refresh of the active connected dataset.

• Get Power BI Apps content

  We added a new set of apis that enable users to get a list of their Power BI installed applications and their content. Currently, the content only includes dashboards and reports.

EMBED function

• Programmatically control all visual menu actions

  The Options and context menu API has been extended to provide complete control over every visual control in the report on built-in and custom commands. Built-in commands can be hidden or grayed out depending on visual effects, and you can control where custom commands are placed in the menu.

• Personalize reports using topic apis

  The Themes API allows you to apply custom Themes to embedded reports, such as company colors, season colors, or other custom styles. Custom themes can be defined using JSON files, such as those in the Power BI service, and applied when a report is loaded or changed in a loaded report.

• Clone visual API

  The Clone visualization API allows you to copy existing visualizations. This is helpful when you want to create visual copies with different filters or different layouts. It also allows you to visually display another page of the report to the current active page.