Power Query Roadmap

Power Query is updated regularly (sometimes monthly) to add new features that address changing data trends and support Microsoft’s BI strategy. Power Query is also appearing outside of Excel 2013 in other new Power BI report design tools that are currently in preview and will be generally available in late 2015.

Stand-alone report designer. A new Power BI report design tool called Power BI Designer is a free desktop application that allows creation of report workbooks without the need for Excel 2013. The tool consolidates features from Excel’s Data, Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View, and Power Map tools to provide most of the same report design features and capabilities as Excel 2013. With Power BI Designer, authors can perform ETL processes on the same range of data sources as in Excel, create sophisticated visualizations, and publish reports to the Power BI service.

Web-based report design. A major Power BI portal update, currently in preview, introduces self-service reporting features that enable users to access data and create reports from within a browser. It contains a light edition of Power Query that includes most of the full edition’s data source support but fewer transformation features.