As organizations embrace a data culture to drive business decisions, they need an enterprise business intelligence platform that can meet their sophisticated needs – from self-service BI to full enterprise governance, from paginated reports to full interactive data exploration, and from small data sets to petabytes of data.

In July, we laid out the roadmap for Power BI to help organizations unify modern and traditional BI on one enterprise platform, and empower business analysts by expanding self-service data prep for big data.  Since then, we’ve shipped a number of capabilities that deliver on this roadmap: Premium multi-geo allows customers to address data residency requirements, aggregations enable data analysis over petabyte sized datasets with trillions of rows of data, and the new Power BI Home landing page and dashboard commenting make it easier to get to your most important content and collaborate across the enterprise.

Today, we’re announcing the availability of several new capabilities that we laid out in our July roadmap.

Dataflows expand self-service data prep in Power BI

Power BI already includes robust self-service data preparation capabilities in Power BI Desktop through the familiar Power Query based experiences that are used by millions of users worldwide. We are excited to announce the public preview of dataflows in Power BI, taking self-service data preparation to the next level.

• Dataflows enable business analysts to create data preparation logic that can be reused across multiple Power BI reports and dashboards.
• Dataflows can be linked together to create sophisticated data transformation pipelines that enable business analysts to build on each other’s work. A new recalculation engine automatically tracks dependencies and recomputes data as new data is ingested.
• Dataflows can be configured to store the data in the customer’s Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 instance, fueling collaboration across roles. Business analysts can seamlessly operate on data stored in Azure Data Lake Storage, taking advantage of its scale, performance, and security. Meanwhile, data engineers and data scientists can extend insights with advanced analytics and AI from complementary Azure Data Services like Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
• Dataflows support the Microsoft Common Data Model, giving organizations the ability to leverage a standardized and extensible collection of data schemas (entities, attributes and relationships)

Columbia Sportswear uses Power BI to empower a broad group of employees to self-discover, share and monitor insights across a diverse range of data sources in the cloud and on-premises. Dataflows unlocks new possibilities for their analysts leveraging large datasets.

“Dataflows are one of the more exciting additions to Power BI,” said Chris Weis, Senior Analytics Product Manager at Columbia Sportswear. “It amplifies Power BI’s ability to handle large datasets. Our analysts can now scale large data transformations beyond the resources of their PC, and accelerate PowerQuery performance in a big way.”

For more background on dataflows, check out Adi Regev’s blog.

SQL Server Reporting Services technology now in Power BI

A modern, compliant and unified enterprise BI platform for business analytics is easier than ever with our latest enterprise operational reporting capabilities.

Our popular SQL Server Reporting Services technology is now part of Power BI and available in public preview, providing a unified, secure, enterprise-wide reporting platform accessible to any user across devices. Pixel-perfect paginated reports can now be included alongside Power BI’s existing interactive reports.

“The availability of paginated reports in the Power BI service removes the last technical barrier to running all types of reports in the cloud,” said John White, Power BI MVP and Chief Technology Officer of Tygraph. “The choice of on premises or in the cloud no longer needs to be a feature decision. Customers with a significant investment in reporting services can now move to Power BI knowing that their reports can move right along with them.”

For more background on Paginated reports in Power BI, check out Chris Finlan’s blog.

Power BI Desktop November Update

We continue to innovate at a rapid pace with weekly updates for the Power BI service and monthly updates for Power BI Desktop. The November update for Power BI Desktop, shipping next week, includes several features the Power BI community has asked for:

• Follow-up questions for Q&A explorer. You can now ask follow-up questions inside the Q&A explorer pop-up, which means the question will take into account the previous questions you asked as context. For example, you can ask “List customers in London” and then ask the follow up question “What did they buy” and the result for that second question will only be for London customers.

• New modeling view makes it easier to work with large models. You can now have multiple diagram layouts, customize and save them, leverage display folders, and several additional enhancements that improve performance and experience – available in preview.

• Expand and collapse matrix row headers.  Row headers on the matrix visual now work like Excel PivotTables, with the ability to expand and collapse individual row headers.

• Copy and paste between PBIX files. You can copy and paste visuals between PBIX files, greatly improving usability and speeding up the process of creating new reports.

Learn more about the public preview of dataflows and SQL Server Reporting Services technology in Power BI during the PASS Summit at the day 1 keynote. For a deeper dive, please join our session Power BI: the Future for Modern and Enterprise BI on November 8^th.  Attendees will see the new capabilities in action and hear more about what’s coming.

We have other fantastic content at PASS that you also won’t want to miss, including sessions covering our latest announcements with Introducing Advanced Data Preparation using Power BI Dataflows and Modern Enterprise Reporting with Power BI Report Server and the Power BI Service.

Click Here!

The boss battle is an awe-inspiring gameplay culmination that evaluates and breaks acquired skills, reveals more of the story, and serves as a major, memorable test of strength for the player.

In this GDC 2018 session, Untame’s (known for the puzzle-platformer Mushroom 11) Itay Keren discusses the various aspects that make a well-designed, effective and memorable boss battle.

Through providing a retrospective of classic to modern game moments, Keren discusses the design fundamentals of boss battles while evoking memories of players’ favorite video game encounters.

It’s an insightful talk that’s still worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.

Today’s Deal: Save 30% on The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II!*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends November 12 at 10AM Pacific Time

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Beta and Delta Rings will begin receiving a new 1811 Xbox One system update (181026-1939). Read on for more about the fixes and known issues in the latest 1811 system update.

New Features:

Family Settings

• Children signing up for new accounts will now be asked to add a parent only if required to by local privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR or COPPA). This means that some minors, like teens in the U.S., will no longer have to add a parent and join a Microsoft family during signup. Xbox privacy and online safety defaults will still be applied based on age, and in order to change those, the minor would need to add a parent on Xbox who can then change their settings. Minors not in a family can add a parent anytime in Settings > Account > Family settings > Add a parent. Joining a family would also allow the parent and child to use other family features like content restrictions, screen time, activity reporting, and spending.
• Children that are subject to local privacy regulations will still be required to add a parent during signup. While this will create a Microsoft family through which the parent can use family features like content restrictions, screen time, activity reporting, and spending, the parent will no longer be required to sign in on Xbox. If a parent wants to change their child’s Xbox privacy and online safety settings, the parent can sign in separately on Xbox and manage their family in Settings > Account > Family settings.
• Existing child accounts are not affected by this change and will remain with their parents in their current Microsoft family.

 Mouse & Keyboard Support

• We have enabled mouse support in the build.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to experience mouse and keyboard support in Warframe.

 Search Enhancements

• The search function has been enhanced across the console and will now return responses from the Xbox Assist application for example to help with help, support and troubleshooting.  Please check out the Quest in the Xbox Insider Hub to help us gather feedback.

Fixes:

My Games and Apps:

• Fixed issues in which some users were experience Games and apps failing to launch at the splash screen.
• Fixed an issue in which Recently installed games were not showing in collections.

Networking

• Fixes to address the console loosing network connectivity at random times.
• Additional fixed issues in which the console is fully powering off when it is placed into Instant On mode.

 Notifications:

• Fixed the Achievement toasts issue in which it was not clearing.
• Fixed the Welcome to Game Pass Toast every time.

 System

• USB keyboard navigation fixes in the system.
• Store twist updates to improve performance and stability.
• Localization fixes.

Known Issues:

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

Japanese chart figures are now in for 29th October – 4th November, revealing that the Switch has managed to regain its usual sales momentum after a slight dip last time around.

Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII returns to the top of the charts this week, with an extra 39,077 sales taking its total for the region to 417,990. Nintendo’s highest entry is Super Mario Party on 27,001 sales, managing to stay in third place for another week.

The only new entry this week was the Switch version of Neko Tomo which has sold 4,151 copies in its opening week. Here’s a look at the top 20 (first numbers are this week’s sales, followed by total sales in brackets):

1) [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII (SIE, 10/12/18) – 39,077 (417,990)
2) [PS4] Red Dead Redemption 2 (Limited Editions Included) (Take-Two Interactive, 10/26/18) – 34,258 (167,242)
3) [NSW] Super Mario Party (Nintendo, 10/05/18) – 27,001 (301,351)
4) [NSW] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Microsoft, 06/21/18) – 8,093 (350,337)
5) [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 8,000 (1,818,277)
6) [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 07/21/17) – 6,505 (2,684,110)
7) [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Limited Edition Included) (Nintendo, 03/03/17) – 4,628 (1,147,476)
8) [PS4] Soulcalibur VI (Bandai Namco, 10/18/18) – 4,304 (33,766)
9) [PS4] Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (Limited Edition Included) (Ubisoft, 10/05/18) – 4,240 (82,874)
10) [NSW] Neko Tomo (Bandai Namco, 11/01/18) – 4,151 (New)
11) [PS4] Marvel’s Spider-Man (Bundle Version Included) (SIE, 09/07/18) – 3,808 (298,124)
12) [3DS] Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (The Pokémon Company, 11/17/17) – 3,568 (1,753,461)
13) [NSW] Super Mario Odyssey (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 10/27/17) – 3,301 (1,837,912)
14) [PS4] Warriors Orochi 4 (Limited Editions Included) (Koei Tecmo, 09/27/18) – 2,887 (151,187)
15) [NSW] Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun! (Bandai Namco, 07/19/18) – 2,751 (220,756)
16) [NSW] Kirby Star Allies (Nintendo, 03/16/18) – 2,689 (636,284)
17) [PS4] Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (Capcom, 10/25/18) – 2,360 (16,358)
18) [PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV ~The End of Saga~ (Limited Editions Included) (Falcom, 09/27/18) – 2,317 (110,314)
19) [NSW] Dragon Ball FighterZ (Bandai Namco, 09/27/18) – 2,298 (43,051)
20) [NSW] Dark Souls: Remastered (From Software, 10/18/18) – 2,248 (20,267)

As you can see below, Switch hardware sales have jumped back up by around 6,000 units this week, pushing its sales right back into its usually consistent 40-45,000 mark. Here are this week’s figures, with last week’s in brackets.

1) Switch – 43,747 (37,855)
2) PlayStation 4 Pro – 8,847 (10,975)
3) PlayStation 4 – 8,693 (9,664)
4) New 2DS LL – 4,226 (3,733)
5) PlayStation Vita – 1,945 (2,115)
6) New 3DS LL – 1,775 (1,669)
7) 2DS – 273 (247)
8) Xbox One X – 129 (127)
9) Xbox One – 61 (71)

< Last week’s charts

Any surprises this time around? Do you expect hardware sales to rise as Pokémon Let’s Go and Smash Bros. Ultimate appear on the scene? Let us know with a comment below.

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is Now Available on Steam!

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a four player co-op action FPS, where you fight the dead as well as the living. Set in The Walking Dead Universe, you and your group try to survive in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C.