Can you import an existing AAS tabular MODEL (not data) into Power BI?

[samloud]

The reverse of this question gets asked a lot, but I can't seme to find an answer to my particualar (somewhat niche!) case.

I have a complicated and mature Tabular Analysis Services solution authoured in Visual Studio, and deployed to Azure.

I want to replicate that model in Power BI Desktop. To be clear, I don't care about the data, I just want to pull in the schema, calculations, roles etc. Basically, I want to see whether we can tear out AAS, Azure SQL dB, and SSIS, and operate this model just on pure Power BI. 

How do-able is that?

[Anonymous]

Hi, can we change live connection to import mode in middle of development ?

[v-yingjl]

Hi @samloud ，

You should know that:

1. When you get data from AAS in power bi desktop ,Live connection mode will get the entire external model including frame and data.
2. In Live connection mode, you can only create some measures when modeling data 

For further information about live connection and tabular model, you can refer the following Microsoft documents and blogs that could help you:

1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-directquery-about
2. https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Community-Blog/Power-BI-Live-connection-vs-Import-comparison-and-li...
3. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-analysis-services-tabular-data

Best Regards,

Yingjie Li

If this post helps then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Mariusz]

Hi @samloud 

Sure, when connecting to your SSAS instance you have two choices, import or live as per the article below.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-analysis-services-tabular-data

As for replacing Azure SQL DB and SSIS you can explore Dataflows.

Best Regards,
Mariusz

If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution.

Please feel free to connect with me.
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[JulianPayne]

This is NOT the solution...

Given the new updates:

• https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/join-us-march-26-200-pm-pdt-power-bi-premium-as-a-superset-of-an...

This is a NEEDED functionlity: replicate JSON from AAS Tabular exatctly to new PBIS (IMPORT mode) model.

We want to migrate from AAS to PBIS asap and there needs to be a solid/approved method to do that, IMO.

[JulianPayne]

Given the new updates:

• https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/join-us-march-26-200-pm-pdt-power-bi-premium-as-a-superset-of-an...

This is a NEEDED functionlity: replicate JSON from AAS Tabular exatctly to new PBIS (IMPORT mode) model.

We want to migrate from AAS to PBIS asap and there needs to be a solid/approved method to do that, IMO.

[samloud]

Thanks for your response. It's a pretty strange request, so let me try to be more clear about what I'm trying to do:

I'm not trying to make a Live connection from PBI to a AAS tabular model. That's what we do now.

I'm not trying to import the data from a AAS tabular model into PBI, becuase that only brings in flattened record sets. No calcualtion definitions, no relationships, no data sources.

Let me ask the question another way: If I was to say to you "You see this complicated Tabular model in AAS? Well, I'd like you to replicate it perfectly, only using Power BI", then how would you go about doing it?

[JulianPayne]

Given the new updates:

• https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/join-us-march-26-200-pm-pdt-power-bi-premium-as-a-superset-of-an...

This is a NEEDED functionlity: replicate JSON from AAS Tabular exatctly to new PBIS (IMPORT mode) model.

We want to migrate from AAS to PBIS asap and there needs to be a solid/approved method to do that, IMO.

[v-yingjl · Accepted solution]

Hi @samloud ,

Based on my research, we could not find an effective solution to replicate AAS tabular model into power bi desktop directly. You can  import data and remodeling in desktop although in this way the two models are similar.

Best Regards,

Yingjie Li

If this post helps then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[samloud]

Thanks for trying. It's a pity, becuase it's so easy to do it the other way from PBI into AAS.