Fabric Planning was announced at FabCon Atlanta in March 2026 to bring planning, analytics and decision-making together in one place. Finance and business teams often plan in one tool, report in another, and explain the numbers in slide decks and email threads. Each switch takes time, and the context behind the numbers gets lost.

The Intelligence Sheet brings management reporting into the same Plan item where planning happens. Teams connect to their semantic model, build planning models, create budgets and forecasts, and deliver reports in one place.

This release adds IBCS® certification, embedded planning, Intelligence Sheets in organizational apps alongside Power BI, and data-linked annotations, along with enhancements that make reports faster to build and easier to read.

IBCS® certified reporting

Microsoft Fabric Planning is IBCS® CERTIFIED Charts+Tables (International Business Communication Standards). It is also certified to ISO 24896:2026, Notation for business reporting: the certification confirms that business charts and tables in the Intelligence Sheet are designed to the ISO standard. Finance users get a standard visual language they recognize on sight.

• Complete template library: IBCS templates C01–C13 and T01–T05, including multi-tier columns, waterfalls and small multiples.
• One-click themes: strict or flexible themes apply the full notation at once, including scaling, labels and color conventions.
• Consistent across reports: themes keep notation, scaling and color uniform across multiple reports.

IBCS certified charts and tables in the Intelligence Sheet

Embedded Planning grids, PowerTable grids and Forms

Planning grids, PowerTable grids and Forms can now be embedded directly in an Intelligence Sheet, alongside charts, KPIs, and Gantt, Resource, Kanban and Calendar views.

• Embedded elements inherit the report's theme.
• Their fields map automatically, so slicers and Super Filter act on them like any other field.

A PowerTable form, PowerTable grid and planning grid embedded beside KPIs and a chart

What this changes for planning teams

• Plan with context. Contributors enter budgets and forecasts while seeing the actuals, trends and variances behind them, rather than typing into a standalone grid.
• Act where you analyze. A regional manager reviewing a variance chart can correct next quarter's forecast in the grid below it, or edit values directly in Matrix and Table visuals, without switching sheets.
• Keep every view in sync. One filter drives the charts, the planning grid and the records together, so everyone works from the same slice of the same data.
• Connect plans to the work behind them. A capex budget can sit next to its request form and project timeline, or a headcount plan beside the open-positions table.

The report is no longer only the last step in the planning cycle. It is where teams analyze, decide and act.

Intelligence Sheets in organizational apps, alongside Power BI

Intelligence Sheet reports and Planning Sheets can now be added as pages in a Power BI or Fabric organizational app, alongside your existing Power BI reports. Intelligence Sheets and Power BI reports co-exist in the same app, so teams keep using the reports they already have and add planning and IBCS reporting next to them.

• One app link. Users open one app to review Power BI reports, Intelligence Sheet reports and the plan, with navigation curated for each audience.
• Existing access rules apply. The org app's audiences and security rules govern who sees what. No separate share link or direct workspace access is needed.
• Where people already work. Org apps with Intelligence and Planning content render the same way in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.

Notes, markers and data-linked annotations

Notes, markers and annotations now stay connected to the data and the filter context behind them, so insights can be reviewed, presented and discussed directly in the report.

• Notes with dedicated note panels, for authors who add insights while editing a report.
• Data-linked annotations with a fetch measure, for teams who store insights in the semantic model and bring them onto a visual.
• Marker mode to draw attention to key takeaways while reviewing or presenting.

Notes, marker mode and annotations on a financial performance report

Note: The source draft calls for a GIF of notes and marker mode in action here. Add it once available.

Additional enhancements

Matrix enhancements

Row grouping and reordering, sorting, comments and themes, with better support for blended and non-semantic values.

Images

Add images to the report canvas, and use image URLs and SVGs in charts and KPI visuals.

Variables with actions

List, number, date and date-range variables put assumptions in the reader's hands. Variables drive formulas, formatting and actions, and can be bound per environment through Fabric variable libraries, so the same report points at the right values in test and in production.

Split categories and group measures

Change how data is pivoted in a visual by grouping measures and splitting categories, without changing the source data. For example, show actual, plan and prior year side by side within each period.

Images on the canvas, grouped measures and matrix enhancements

Get started

• Intelligence Sheet documentation
• Microsoft's general availability announcement for Planning in Microsoft Fabric
• Try Microsoft Fabric

Explore more updates

• What's New in Fabric Planning: FabCon Europe 2026 Updates
• What's new with PowerTable

Videos

• Intelligence Sheet introduction
• Build IBCS compliant reports in Microsoft Fabric

For more, visit the video library.

PowerTable sheets in Fabric Plan, is a no-code data app for managing dimensions, master and reference data, and business entities, stored and governed in Fabric SQL tables. 

Here's a roundup of the latest updates, covering security, automation, data entry, tracking and everyday usability. 

1. Security - Layered Up! 

Protect sensitive data with security that builds in layers. Access starts at the database and narrows further in PowerTable, with flexible rules that adapt to how each organization defines who should see what. 

• Database security respected: Row-level security defined in the Fabric SQL database now holds in PowerTable. Each person sees only the rows the database allows them to see. PowerTable settings can narrow that access but never widen it. 
• Roles and policies for row-level security (Preview): Now define row-level access centrally and apply it across the sheets. RLS is built in layers: Rules -> Policies -> Roles -> Users. Central teams can be given bypass access. This feature is currently in preview. 

2. Automation  - Now Doing More! 

Let every change set the next one in motion. New automation actions use the data entered in PowerTable to trigger further updates across Fabric items and databases, keeping connected systems in sync without manual effort: 

• Event Trigger actions: New Action - When an automation's trigger fires, it can run a Fabric notebook or pipeline, passing values from the record such as an ID, amount or status. Downstream processes start the moment the data is ready, with no manual handoffs. 
• Execute Stored Procedure: New Action - Run a stored procedure in the database directly from an automation, with values from the triggering record passed in as parameters. 

3. Data Input - Opened Wider 

More data, more ease to bring it in. PowerTable now provides greater flexibility at the point of entry: 

• Import multi-sheet Excel files: upload one Excel workbook, pick the sheets you need and create a table for each in a single step. Column data types are detected automatically and can be adjusted per table before creating them.  
• File attachments in forms: forms can now include attachment columns, so users can upload a supporting document, up to 5 MB, as they submit a record. 
• Bit/Boolean data type: New column datatype - Track yes/no flags such as Is Active or Approved, shown as a checkbox or a number. 

4. Insights, Upgraded! 

PowerTable now exposes more metrics and perspectives, making effort and workload easier to track: 

• Effort columns in Gantt: Display Total Logged Effort and Remaining Effort as read-only Derived columns, calculated automatically from time entries.  

• Additional KPIs in Resource summary bars: Logged Hours, Actual Utilization %, Work Variance and Work Performance join the existing KPIs. That brings the total to eight resource KPIs, which can be analysed by day, week, month, quarter or year. 

• Backlog pane: View, add and edit unscheduled tasks in a side pane in the Gantt, Resource and Calendar layouts, and schedule them by adding their dates. 

5. Quicker Actions 

The most common scheduling and restructuring actions are now right where you work: 

• Task path: Highlight a task's predecessors and successors in the Gantt, or only the driving and driven tasks, to see the impact of a delay at a glance. 
• Context menus across collaborative work layouts: Right-click a Gantt bar, Resource bar, Calendar event or Kanban card to manage, delete, reschedule or convert a record to a milestone. 

• Insert and convert milestones: Add a milestone from Insert Row, or turn an existing task into one from the context menu, in the Gantt, Resource and Calendar layouts. 
• Reschedule Task: Move a task forward or backward by days, weeks or months from the context menu, skipping weekends and holidays and respecting dependencies. 

• Make and promote subtasks: Restructure the Gantt hierarchy (ID-Parent ID based) from the row context menu by making a task a subtask or promoting it up a level. 

6. Usability Upgrades 

In the pursuit of a more intuitive, personalized and collaborative experience, PowerTable now includes the following updates: 

• Link to sheet: Copy and share a link to a specific PowerTable sheet, so anyone who opens it lands directly on that sheet. 
• Default locale for dates and numbers: Show dates and numbers in each user’s regional format, including date order, separators, time format and time zone, or set one fixed format for everyone. 
• Formula editor: Write formulas faster with suggestions, syntax guidance and ready-to-fill templates as you type. An expanded editor adds indentation, color coding, a searchable function browser and clear error messages. 

That's the latest from PowerTable. Grab a table, try something new, and watch this space for what's next. 

Learn more 

• Explore PowerTable Documentation - Learn how to use PowerTable and explore its capabilities.
• Browse All Release Announcements - Catch up on the latest features, enhancements, and product updates.

Every Fabric Planning update announced at FabCon Europe in Barcelona, with a short demo video for each feature.

At FabCon Europe 2026, Microsoft announced a new set of capabilities for Planning in Microsoft Fabric. The updates make planning simpler to set up, faster at enterprise scale, more tightly connected to Power BI semantic models and the rest of Fabric, and easier to govern as adoption grows.

Microsoft's announcement covers the headline features: Planning in Microsoft Fabric: From insight to action. This post goes through the full list of updates, shows each one in a demo video, and marks which features are in preview or coming soon.

What's new with Planning

The Planning updates are grouped into five areas, followed by the limitations removed in this release.

1. Start faster

These updates cut down the setup needed before a team can begin working on the numbers.

No-setup connectivity for semantic models

Connecting a plan to a semantic model is now as simple as building a Power BI report: a single click, with the same workspace permissions you already use in Power BI.

Create Plan → choose semantic model → connect → start planning.

Until now, most onboarding effort went into setting up and maintaining the DMTS connection, and into fixing plans when that connection expired. That setup is gone.

• No DMTS connection. There is no DMTS connection to create or share, and no DMTS connection expiry to recover from.
• No shared cloud connection or service principal. Planners connect with their own signed-in identity.
• No tenant settings to configure. The four tenant settings Fabric Planning relies on, including the XMLA endpoint settings, are on by default. You only need to turn one on if it was turned off in your tenant.
• No additional permissions. Workspace Admin or Member rights are not required, and Contributors do not need Build permission on the semantic model. If you can build a Power BI report on the model, you can plan on it.
• Security enforced per user. Direct Lake and DirectQuery run natively over SSO, and row-level and object-level security from the semantic model apply automatically to each signed-in user.

Before	Now
Create and share a DMTS connection	Not needed
Recover plans after a DMTS connection expires	Not needed
Configure a shared cloud connection and service principal	Not needed
Turn on tenant settings, including XMLA	On by default
Workspace Admin or Member rights, and Build permission on the semantic model	Same permissions as building a Power BI report

Existing permissions and data access controls continue to apply, so nothing new has to be secured.

Home Layout

Different teams often work inside the same Plan item but need different information. Home Layout lets you create dedicated landing pages for each role within one Plan item.

• Role-based pages built from hero banners, sections, images and sheet cards.
• Respects role security, so hidden sheets never appear.
• Layout priority, plus an item baseline default.

Each team lands on what it needs first, with less navigation, and one Plan item can serve every team.

2. Plan at scale

These updates support detailed, driver-based plans that stay connected to enterprise targets.

Native Planning Engine Preview

The new Native Planning Engine is built on Rust and Apache Arrow with tight OneLake integration. It delivers up to 10x improvements in performance and scale.

• Work with up to 12 million cells in a planning model, with dependent calculations updating as inputs change.
• Input and allocate across large, detailed business models.
• Any number of dimensions, measures or scenarios, with six model options at scale.
• Keep departmental (line of business) plans connected across the enterprise.

How much scale do you need? Recommendations

Semantic models can hold billions of rows, but a plan usually works with a few dimensions in rows, time in columns and a set of measures. Most plans need no more than 1.2 million cells. With filters and row-level security (RLS) on the semantic model, that is enough scale for most customers.

The Native Planning Engine supports up to 12 million cells in a planning model. Large plans are still limited by two things outside the engine:

• Fetch time. Loading a large volume of data from the semantic model takes time.
• Power BI capacity limits. Power BI limits how much data a query can fetch and how many queries can run at once. When many users pull large volumes of data at the same time, the semantic model's Analysis Services engine can throttle their queries.

Our recommendations:

• Limit what each user fetches. Use filters and RLS so most users load only the data they plan on. Typically only a few planning power users need the full data set, for example to allocate at the grand-total level.
• Choose a modeling method built for the grain. When a plan needs this many cells, evaluate:
  • PowerTable integration for planning at line-item grain, such as SKUs, employees or customers.
  • Cube for multi-dimensional planning.
• Match the method to the use case. Fabric Planning supports several modeling methods for bottom-up operational planning, top-down financial planning, driver-based planning, scenario planning and strategic planning. Follow the implementation best practices for your use case.

Multi-driver, multi-measure simulations

You can now test several drivers together and see their combined effect on the measures that matter.

• Explore price, volume, cost and staffing assumptions together. For example, a sales plan might assume higher volume and a lower selling price, and operations can then test the material, labor and overtime implications.
• In Matrix or Tree View, changes flow through the configured driver relationships and hierarchy detail through to business KPIs such as profit.
• Create scenarios such as Best Case and compare them before committing to the forecast.

More ways to model and deliver planning

• Custom fiscal year planning supports calendars whose periods do not begin in January.
• Stepped, Outline and Tree layouts let teams shape the planning grid around how their business works.
• Measure modeling builds plans from the measures already in your semantic model.
• Advanced Lookup brings XLookup into the planning grid and enables PowerTable lookups into Fabric SQL.
  

3. Put plans to work

These updates move approved plans and forecasts into analysis, agents and downstream workflows.

Semantic model integration

Planners can now write plan data back into the same semantic model the plan is built on, so actuals and plans live in one governed model.

• After you configure the writeback destination, add the resulting table and its relationships to your existing semantic model directly from the planning UI.
• The writeback data is then available to Power BI reporting, Copilot and Data Agents without a separate manual modeling step.
• Compare actuals and forecasts in Power BI.

Fabric IQ ontology and Data Agents

Once plan data is in the connected semantic model, Fabric IQ can use plans and forecasts alongside actuals.

• Connect planning results to the ontology, so targets, forecasts and assumptions are represented as business entities, properties and relationships.
• Give Data Agents and configured Copilot experiences plan context.
• Reason over both historical results and forward-looking forecasts, for example when analyzing variance or evaluating scenarios.

Event Triggers

A plan rarely stops when a value is submitted. Event Triggers let planners configure, from the planning UI, what runs when a writeback starts, succeeds or fails.

• Run Fabric pipelines, notebooks, Dataflow Gen2, semantic model refreshes and SQL stored procedures.
• Send automated Microsoft Teams notifications and Outlook email.
• Pass writeback details and execution metadata directly as action parameters.
• Configure multiple triggers per planning sheet for different automation paths.

Execute Stored Procedure in PowerTable Automations

PowerTable Automations already provide no-code actions for creating, updating and managing records. Some processes depend on logic that lives in the database. Execute Stored Procedure brings that logic into the same automated workflow.

• Run stored procedures from your Fabric SQL database as an action in PowerTable Automations.
• Select procedures by schema from a dropdown, with no integration code or external scheduling.
• Pass values from the triggering record, such as a customer or order key, so each run targets the right data.
• Combine with no-code actions such as Create, Update and Find Records.
• Reuse the procedures your data team already maintains for aggregations, recalculations and multi-table updates.

OneLake writeback (Coming soon)

Fabric Planning will add OneLake as a native writeback destination, as an alternative to Fabric SQL Database.

• Store planning inputs, budgets and forecasts as native Delta Parquet tables in a Lakehouse.
• Reuse the data through OneLake shortcuts and compatible Fabric workloads.
• Remove the need for a separate SQL writeback database for teams with a lake-first architecture.
• Scale: with OneLake as a direct writeback destination, Fabric Planning will support writeback of 10M+ cells.

4. Reach the business

These updates bring planning into the apps people already use and extend it to the people who know the business.

Planning in organizational apps

Planning Sheets and Intelligence Sheet reports can now be embedded as pages in a Power BI or Fabric organizational app, alongside Power BI reports and related analytics.

• Users open one application link to review performance, reach the plan and continue the workflow.
• Navigation and content can be curated for each business audience.
• Existing app audiences and security rules govern access. No separate share link or direct workspace access is needed.
• Org apps with Plan content render the same way in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.

Planning and PowerTable in the Intelligence Sheet

A planner who builds a detailed planning sheet often also needs KPIs, charts and a management-ready view of the same plan. The Intelligence Sheet can now hold Planning and PowerTable content together in one sheet.

• Update plans live and see the impact across KPIs and visuals.
• Embed PowerTable grids and Forms alongside Gantt, Resource, Kanban and Calendar views, all inheriting the report's theme.
• Combine plan data with operational detail to investigate variances and drivers.

Direct sharing of Plan items

A Plan item can now be shared directly with any user, even if they are not a member or viewer of the workspace it lives in.

• The item owner grants the user read or edit access to the semantic model the plan is built on.
• Users open the plan in read mode and can still take Stakeholder actions, such as entering data in input columns and adding comments.
• Participation stays aligned with role and data permissions.

Microsoft Entra B2B guest access

Guest users invited through Microsoft Entra B2B can now access and collaborate on Plan items in the same way as internal users.

• Stop provisioning internal accounts for external partners.
• Standard B2B invitation and access management applies, so governance stays central.
• Supports planning across organizational boundaries: joint ventures, external finance teams, consulting engagements and group consolidations.

Notes, Marker Mode and Annotation

Report authors can add narrative and context directly around the data, so a report explains itself when it is presented.

• Notes for live editing, to tell the story around the numbers.
• Marker Mode to draw attention to key takeaways and data points.
• Annotation to connect notes from the semantic model directly to a visual.

IBCS® certified reporting

Fabric Planning is IBCS® certified, aligned with ISO 24896:2026.

• Full semantic coverage and 100+ charts and templates (C01–C13, T01–T05).
• One-click notation, with automatic AC, PL, PY and FC scenarios.
• IBCS-aligned advanced visuals such as Marimekko, box plots and bullet charts.
• Uniform notation, scaling and color across multiple reports through themes.

5. Govern growth

These updates give administrators control over access, capacity and permissions as more teams adopt planning.

Tenant-level session upgrade controls

Until now, any user who entered data, wrote back changes or collaborated was upgraded automatically from a Viewer session to a Stakeholder session. Three new Plan tenant settings in the Fabric Admin Portal let administrators decide who can upgrade and see capacity impact before it happens.

• Control who can upgrade to a Planner session and who can upgrade to a Stakeholder session. Access defaults to the entire organization and can be restricted to specific security groups.
• Turn on an oversubscription warning that appears before a session upgrade is likely to exceed capacity, for example a second concurrent Planner session on an F2.
• Override settings for individual capacities through Delegated Tenant Settings.
• Users outside the allowed groups can still view content in Reading view.

Capacity throttling

Fabric capacity controls now apply consistently to planning as it reaches a wider audience.

• New sessions and session upgrades are blocked when a capacity is throttled.
• Additional demand is contained during periods of capacity pressure.
• Administrators get consistent workload operating controls.

Row-level security for PowerTable

Teams that write back to shared tables rarely need the same access to the same data. Row-level security brings data-driven access control into PowerTable, down to the individual row.

• Control who can read, update, delete or insert each row, based on values such as territory or region.
• Combine rules into policies and policies into roles, then assign multiple roles to any user.
• Use user attributes such as email or manager, so access follows each person automatically.
• Serve every team from one shared sheet instead of duplicating sheets for each audience.

Contributor security controls Coming soon

A new setting will let administrators control which Contributors can change security and governance settings in a Plan item.

Private Link support Preview

Fabric Planning supports Microsoft Fabric Private Link at both tenant and workspace level.

• Route planning traffic through the Microsoft private network.
• Restrict public access so Plan items, semantic model connections and writebacks stay within your network boundary.
• Meets network-isolation requirements in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare and government.

PowerTable-only billing

Microsoft recently announced a billing change for non-planning editors. For PowerTable-only data management, editors are billed as Stakeholders and consumers as Viewers, so teams get full data management without a Planner session.

6. From known limitations to known wins

Several limitations from earlier releases have now been removed.

Access and connectivity

Feature	March 2026	Now
B2B user support	No	Yes
Private Link support	No	Yes (Preview)
Semantic model connection authentication	OAuth / service principal	All supported authentication methods
Admin/Build permission required on semantic model	Required	No
Direct Lake semantic models need extra configuration	Yes	No

Scale and capacity

Feature	March 2026	Now
Power BI Pro / PPU / lower-capacity SKUs (no XMLA support)	No	Yes
Bulk data input limit	1M rows	10M rows

Workspace, deployment and data security

Feature	March 2026	Now
CI/CD deployment with a service principal	No	Yes
Database-level row-level security (RLS)	No	Yes
DMTS connection recovery	Manual rebuild needed	Yes
Contributor role: create/share cloud connections	No	Not applicable
Contributor role: Plan items requiring embed tokens	No	Not applicable

What comes next

Microsoft's stated next step is an API surface for the planning lifecycle, so an agent can work inside a plan the way a planner does: draft a forecast, run a simulation across drivers, compare scenarios before a commitment is made, write the result back, and start the downstream work it sets in motion.

What's New with Fabric Planning: webinar

We will walk through these updates in a live session, with demos and time for questions: Register now

Learn more

• Microsoft's announcement: Planning in Microsoft Fabric: From insight to action
• Upcoming Fabric Planning webinars
• Key Considerations for Planning at Scale with Microsoft Fabric Plan