What's New:Drill-Back and Dynamic Dimension Name Support in Power BI Apps for Business Central(2025)
Drill-back and dynamic dimension names in the Power BI apps for Business Central, as demonstrated in a 2025 video. Drill-back opens Business Central from a Power BI number to show the underlying transactions. Dimension names now load from Business Central, including shortcut dimensions.
- Introduction to drill-back and dynamic dimension names
- Understanding drill-back and dimension naming concepts
- Drill-back demonstration with liability report
- Dynamic dimension naming in Power BI desktop
- Adding shortcut dimensions and refreshing in Power BI
- Resources and community links
Overview
The video shows two changes in the Power BI apps for Business Central. Drill-back lets a user click a number in a Power BI report, such as a liability report matrix, and open Business Central in a new tab to see the transactions behind that number. The demo checks that the total in Business Central matches the number noted in the report.
The second part covers dynamic dimension naming. A new dimension sets table in Power BI loads dimension names and values from Business Central, so filters show real names such as customer group and department instead of codes. The presenter edits the report in Power BI Desktop, adds shortcut dimensions and refreshes the dimension sets table with a schema and data refresh. A short aside shows the version 27 analysis mode feature for scrolling to a column in a list.
Key points
- Drill-back: a link in a Power BI matrix opens Business Central in a new tab with the transactions behind the number.
- Previous Power BI apps showed only dimension codes and could filter only on global dimensions 1 to 3.
- A new dimension sets table loads dimension names and values from Business Central, so filters use names instead of codes.
- Shortcut dimensions are now supported in addition to global dimensions.
- Dynamic dimension names require manual editing of reports in Power BI Desktop.
- After changing dimensions in Business Central, refresh the dimension sets table with a schema and data refresh to pick up the change.
- Version 27 analysis mode lets you search for a column and right-click to scroll it into view in a list.
Features
Every feature below: status not stated, demoed.
| Feature | At |
|---|---|
| Drill-back from Power BI to Business Central | 0:29 |
| Dynamic dimension naming in Power BI apps | 0:57 |
| Analysis mode scroll-to-column feature | 2:36 |
| Dimension sets table in Power BI | 3:44 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- table 98 “General Ledger Setup” at 5:25
- table “dimension sets” at 3:44
Not found in BC28-30: table “dimension sets”.
Quotes
- 0:29 “Drill back is for situations where you got want to understand the a number in in the report. What what is behind that number?”
- 0:57 “in the previous PowerBI apps we only had the dimension codes and also uh only ability to filter on global dimension 1 2 and”
- 2:07 “you can see in this matrix that I now have a link and if I choose this link this will open up a new”
- 2:48 “105 835. That is actually the number I asked you to uh to remember. So it’s not magic even though this is like a”
- 3:44 “here I have a new table called dimension sets where you can see we are now loading the customer group name and the department”
- 4:39 “we don’t have really have slicers in our reports. That’s a design principle”
- 5:56 “I now choose to refresh not the full data set but just the dimension sets here with a schema and data refresh”