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Power BI Designer API

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Marco Russo on 27 Mar 2015 16:20:23

Power BI Designer saves a local PBIX file, which can be a file to export data and data model – in other words, it’s a format that contains a complete semantic model. All the applications that today export data in several formats (CSV, Excel, XML), might provide a richer semantic model exporting a PBIX file.

Many ISV/SI that have OLTP and other applications that stores data in some database, usually struggle to offer a compelling BI story to their customers. The smaller they are, the more they feel this pressure because probably the effort they can put in their custom software is minimal.

Today these ISV/SI integrate their solution with external vendor technologies (QlikView is a common choice here). However, the cost of such a solution for the end user is not always appealing, and for this reason the MS partner ecosystem always look for components (charts and pivot tables) to integrate in their solutions.

Providing them an easy and inexpensive way to produce PBIX files “ready to use” straight from their product/solution would provide several benefits:

- Customers would have something ready to be uploaded to Power BI service

- ISV/SI would be able to provide a BI solution integrated with MS ecosystem

- ISV/SI can implement solutions like “send a PBIX file via mail every week to all the agents including only the data of their prospects/customers” - Today they already do that using the .CUB format, which can be consumed by both Excel and custom applications

- Microsoft would increase the number of Power BI users very quickly - Small ISV/SI would be able to implement such integration very fast

What I propose to do is, in descending order of importance:

1) Support Power BI Designer as a local engine with an API that can be used by anyone and officially support local connections by other programs (starting from Excel)

- The API should provide the ability to create a data model and to populate it with data by just using API, without any manual interaction

- Providing the ability to connect from other clients (today it is possible but not officially supported) would increase the adoption.

2) Document and “open” the PBIX file, so that it can be generated by anyone

- I think that this is easy for the data model, but not for the data.

- But without the data, this model would be not so useful, requiring a manual refresh to be populated.

3) Open source the Power BI Designer

- Not really a priority in my opinion, but if the first two wouldn’t be possible, this one could be ok

Administrator on 01 May 2015 05:42:28

Hi everyone. There are some really interesting ideas in this thread, thanks for your vocal support about it! We'll consider it for the future along with other suggestions and plans. Thanks!

Comments (87)
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362ea0d9 e073-4b68-b502-f8823e47a981 on 05 Jul 2020 22:05:45

RE: Power BI Designer API

Hi,
Would like to know if there is any update on above idea. Thanks.

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fdba31df 54e3-4f6c-b2fe-ab0fcf4c4661 on 05 Jul 2020 22:02:18

RE: Power BI Designer API

I'm totally agree with this. What I want point out is to allow to change the data source connection with the API. Usually every ISV has a great number of customers and each of them as a specific istance of DB (ex. SQL Server)

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85119633 1d0f-4357-8a23-32f8b4d8268a on 05 Jul 2020 22:02:06

RE: Power BI Designer API

You have my vote!

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d706f317 56b5-4c60-8849-28039d048fbc on 05 Jul 2020 22:02:02

RE: Power BI Designer API

Great idea!!

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f3eb1bcf b2c7-4c8c-a45e-0c6291ec6a3e on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:48

RE: Power BI Designer API

Good idea, I think it's also quite important, that the API should include a method for
uploading the PBIX file to Power BI.

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65a98445 53c8-4fb0-bafa-0fa3942a14e4 on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:23

RE: Power BI Designer API

This would instantly vault Power BI Designer from the realm of "just another application" to the realm of "legitimate BI Platform." It has been proven over and over again that the way of the platform, with a healthy partner ecosystem, can bring explosive growth to a product, especially for SaaS products like Power BI. This would be a huge win for Microsoft and for the community that depends on it.

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d321f910 26ee-4654-8f6a-825f4a0db28a on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:20

RE: Power BI Designer API

What's the status of this idea ? It's categorized in "hot ideas" but still hasn't gotten any official feedback.

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ee9aac75 cb11-438e-9c7b-29a9e4153401 on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:04

RE: Power BI Designer API

Agreed. Tx!

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e1a9952a 1743-4ece-8299-397e8f06923f on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:04

RE: Power BI Designer API

You got my vote too !

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421df687 9bbe-4a71-95ac-843004723153 on 05 Jul 2020 22:00:04

RE: Power BI Designer API

It's definetely the missing part, you got my vote.