on 02 Feb 2016 14:39:51
Allow data modellers to define more complex relationships between tables. Currently, no compound key relationships are allowed, which hinders modelling and design, as now what should be a simple process becomes more complicated with users needing to manufacture unique non intelligent keys.
- Comments (6)
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
The lack of this functionality is very disappointing. The workaround does not apply on all types of columns and disables DirectQuery mode.
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
I support this - the lack of composite key support in the query editor infers that Microsoft demands a surrogate key, which is senseless. Modelling should be allowed to create the (minimum) required key to support the business intention, and the tool reading from the datastore needs to support this.
I've just hit this in an otherwise poorly modelled legacy store which I wanted to use PowerBI to give the business faster, more collaborative access to the data.
I will work around this gap by creating the join in a view. That is going to mean I need a deployment in order to create that view.
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
Absolutely agree.
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
The concatenation solution does not work in direct query mode. When there are large tables, it is not practical to use import mode. Please fix this.
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
I totally agree - this is a competitive disadvantage in the Microsoft BI stack today. Creating artificial keys could introduce unintended problems, not to mention it's non-value-added time and extra data to haul around.
RE: Allow compound keys in relationships
It'd be nice, but a simple alternative is to create another column on the dataset that concatenates fields to create a compound key.