Mike Hardy on 26 Mar 2016 22:06:08
Our typical workflow consists of dedicated report writers creating reports in the Desktop app. At the same time I'm working on improving the Data Model which consists mostly of editing M scripts in the Advanced Editor. Currently this can't be done at the same since everything is embedded in a single pbix. It would be great if there was the ability to break out the data model and reports into seperate files that the main pbix would load. They could each be checked into source control and worked on seperately. Taking it a step further, if every report was it's own file that the main pbix would load you could have multiple report writers and a backend developer all working at the same time.
- Comments (5)
RE: Decouple Data Model from Reports
This is the very best idea for a PowerBi feature I've ever seen.
RE: Decouple Data Model from Reports
You can already used linked data models via the service. Once you load a model, you can select the "Power BI Service" as your source for a report, and work on it that way. That's how we are working now. The only downside is that you can't edit the model when working on a linked model.
RE: Decouple Data Model from Reports
This would be extremely useful. I see that the Power BI model could be similar to a Business Objects Universe - Such that reports are linked to that meta-data layer rather than embedding the model into the report.
RE: Decouple Data Model from Reports
If PBIDesktop had a "developer" mode, I imagine it would split out the files within the pbix file (it is just a ZIP file with a pbix extension), and it could support source control providers and multiple concurrent developers.
I can see the data model being one unit of development, and each report a separate file, as mentioned.
Team development support, as well as command line options to generate templates, set parameters, create models from templates, and publish models to app.powerbi.com (or SSRS when that comes) would make Power BI a great tool for agile analytics.
RE: Decouple Data Model from Reports
Feature very necessary. Please add as quickly as possible! An option to save the data model as another extension (pbimx, for example) and import it into another file pbix would be ideal.