Power BI just got a Gantt chart. Does it matter for PL-300?

The October 2026 Power BI update adds a built-in Gantt chart and a dropdown mode for the list slicer. Both are in preview, and neither is named in the PL-300 study guide, whose skills are measured as of April 20, 2026. For the exam, the objectives that matter here are still selecting an appropriate visual, applying conditional formatting and configuring slicers. The new features are worth knowing because they sit right on top of those skills.

What is the Power BI Gantt chart?

The new Gantt chart is a core visual for task durations, progress and milestones on a timeline, built into Power BI Desktop.

• The only required field is the task label. Start and End are optional, and both accept measures.
• Leave End blank and the row is drawn as a milestone.
• A percent complete measure draws progress on each bar.
• You can group tasks with up to three category levels, and add extra columns and tooltips.
• The axis scales automatically or uses fixed levels, with day shading and zoom. The visual shows up to 1,000 rows.

To try it, turn on the visual under Preview features in Power BI Desktop and restart Desktop.

The dropdown list slicer

This one is not a new visual. The list slicer, itself still in preview, gets a dropdown mode: the items open in a drawer under a selection box, so the slicer takes less space on the canvas. Items keep their formatting (text, images and conditional formatting), and the current selections show as pills you can dismiss, with a pill that counts them. List and button slicers also get a Show selected first option that pins the active selections at the top.

Also in the October update

• Plot area fill (generally available): bar, column, line, area, combo, ribbon, waterfall and scatter charts accept a solid plot area fill, with conditional formatting based on a measure or a field value. This connects directly to the conditional formatting objective in PL-300.
• Auto-expand hierarchy axis (generally available): bar, column and line charts expand hierarchy axes automatically when several columns are selected, including columns that come from field parameters.
• Personal bookmarks now keep column widths and column order in tables and matrices.

Microsoft lists no DAX, Power Query or row-level security changes in this update.

Should you study it for PL-300?

Not as exam topics. The guide does not name the Gantt chart or the dropdown slicer, and both are still previews. What the exam does ask is that you pick the right visual for a question, format it, and set up slicers and their interactions. If you can explain when a timeline beats a bar chart, or why a slicer should sync across pages, these new options will make sense the first time you open them.

If Microsoft changes the PL-300 objectives, the change will appear on our update calendar.