New Year, Smarter Work: Get 1 Month Free Copilot | Now $21/User.

April 12, 2021

What’s New in Power BI for 2021!

Power BI is Microsoft’s cloud-based business analytics service that provides users with a single view of your most critical business data. Bond Consulting Services (BCS) specializes in implementing, integrating and supporting Power BI to transform your data into rich, interactive dashboards and reports that are updated in real time and are accessible on any device. These dashboards and reports are also completely customizable so you can organize them any way you want, freeing you to focus on what matters most for your business. Make data-driven decisions and turn insight into action with Microsoft Power BI!

Power BI 2021 Release 1 Updates:

1. Security Enhancements: In February of 2021, Microsoft announced powerful security enhancements to Power BI including private links, service tags, TLS 1.2 enforcement, VNet, Department of Defense Impact Level 6, and double encryption. Microsoft also announced preview updates for sensitivity labels in Power BI Desktop and Azure. All these updates were specifically designed to help you protect your business data while still allowing relevant parties to utilize and analyze dashboards and reports within Power BI.

2. Premium Generation 2: Premium Generation 2 (Gen2) is Microsoft’s new Power BI architecture that provides unified self-service analytics and enterprise business intelligence for every user and every organization. The new architecture will migrate your existing premium data sets and reports to the cloud solution in a matter of hours, without interrupting business productivity. Premium Gen2 enables flexibility to license by user, it automatically adds capacity when needed, and it supports consistent cost management capabilities to grow data and analytics maturity across your organization. Premium Gen2 also lowers TCO and improves performance (up to 16x performance boost!) with its faster processing capabilities. Autoscale is now available as an optional add-on to Premium Gen2 that provides detailed utilization analytics and clear notifications to drive Azure consumed revenue. Premium Gen2 enables users to build solutions and services for customers with increased reliability, scale and security, and it provides important organic maturity models so you can easily answer questions about utilization, capacity and performance.

3. Premium Per User: Premium per user architecture recently launched in April of 2021 and it provides direct purchase access to self-service business intelligence and augmented analytics with flexible licensing. Premium per user leverages the same blazing fast Premium Gen2 architecture with performance increases of up to 16x! Power BI premium per user includes paginated reports, AI, deployment pipelines and many other capabilities to inspire actionable insights while also protecting your business data.

BCS is very excited about these new updates to Power BI and we continue to push the boundaries of business intelligence to move businesses forward in every way possible.

To learn more about the powerful benefits of Microsoft Power BI, please contact sales@BondConsultingServices.com, call (562) 988-3451 or schedule a free consultation on our website!

Share On: 

Other articles

Why Distribution Hand-Offs Break (and How Connected Operations Fix Them)

Jennifer Ryan

|

December 18, 2025
Inside distribution companies, most problems don’t come from bad people or broken intentions. They come from gaps in the hand-offs between teams.As a Controller, I used to think our issues…

Unlocking Insights: Power BI Integration with Dynamics 365 Business Central

Joel Trinidad

|

December 16, 2025
As businesses increasingly rely on data to drive decisions, Microsoft continues to enhance the synergy between Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) and Power BI. With the release of Business Central Version 26, users now…

The Spreadsheet Trap in Distribution: Why You Lose Control Without Realizing It

Jennifer Ryan

|

December 11, 2025
Let me start with a confession: I love a good spreadsheet. They’re flexible. Fast. Familiar. Elegant.But here’s the problem no one talks about: Spreadsheets eventually become the system. And that’s…

How to Connect Power Pages & D365 Customer Engagement for a Seamless Self-Service Experience

Marisa Mini

|

December 4, 2025
Power Pages for Customer Service, Field Service, and Sales PortalsCreating a seamless, modern customer experience starts with reducing the back-and-forth. If your customers (or vendors, partners, applicants, members, etc.) still…

How to Tell if Your Distribution Business Has Outgrown Its Systems

Jennifer Ryan

|

December 1, 2025
As a former Controller inside a fast-moving distribution business, I learned this lesson the hard way: You don’t realize your system is breaking until growth exposes every weakness.It doesn’t happen…

Why Microsoft Killed Social Posting (And Why SMBs Should Care)

Jackie Gant

|

November 25, 2025
When Microsoft quietly pulled the plug on social posting in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights late last year, few in the small to mid-sized business (SMB) space raised an eyebrow. After…