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Rodrigo_Carvalh
Advocate II
Advocate II

How to find where a column is used?

I do have a model with many tables and calculated columns. Sometimes I want to find out if a column is used somewhere, if it is not used I can delete it cleaning up the model. I usually delete the column and look for errors, is there a better way to do it?

Thanks!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

If you want to track the dependencies in DAX, you can use VertiPaq Analyzer. It extracts all the DAX expressions for calculated columns, measures and calculated tables. Then you can search in the list... not optimal, there is a DMV provinding dependencies info for calculations, but we didn't incorporate in in a tool to navigate dependencies more easily.

 

However, what is really missing is a feature that check whether a column/measure is used in any report or not. But in case you publish the report on Power BI and then connect from other reports or from Excel... then it will be impossible to track such a dependency in any case.

View solution in original post

8 REPLIES 8
Brunner_BI
Super User
Super User

Our tool Measure Killer has an automated way of finding the unused columns and measures in a report.

bexbissell
Frequent Visitor

I had the same problem with wanting to tidy up my model and remove redundant/unwanted columns. I experimented with 
VertiPaq Analyzer

 Power BI Helper

 

but had the most success with:
Power BI Cleaner Gen2  The BIccountant

 

With VertiPaq you have to search the list which is not ideal

The Power BI Helper wrongly identified measures that in fact could not be deleted

The Power BI Cleanser Gen2 idemtified measures that were not used and could correctly be deleted

 

Thanks for the original post and responses which helped me find these resources

 

If you want to track the dependencies in DAX, you can use VertiPaq Analyzer. It extracts all the DAX expressions for calculated columns, measures and calculated tables. Then you can search in the list... not optimal, there is a DMV provinding dependencies info for calculations, but we didn't incorporate in in a tool to navigate dependencies more easily.

 

However, what is really missing is a feature that check whether a column/measure is used in any report or not. But in case you publish the report on Power BI and then connect from other reports or from Excel... then it will be impossible to track such a dependency in any case.

@marcorusso Hi Marco, just wondering if you were aware of any Power BI 'Idea' to support the need for a funcionality to see where a measure or column is used in a report?

 

I have been looking but can't seem to find anything to upvote before opening a new one...!

 

Many thanks, 

 

Matt Alexander

Not aware of that - if you searched and didn't find it, create a new one!

 

Marco Russo - SQLBI

Thanks @marcorusso - just wanted to check to avoid duplicating ideas!

 

Matt

Looks like there is an idea submitted to find where a column or measure is used.

 

Go here to vote for it!

Anonymous
Not applicable

It'd be really nice if you could find this under modeling or something like that but I don't think power bi provides a feature like that.

 

The best way I know of doing that is by going through your pages and clicking on each visual to see if the column is being used. 

 

That being said, sometimes I use a calculated column as a way to manipulate something before I make the calculated column I actually need. So if you make some calculated columns that are based on other calculated columns, like me, I don't think there's a way to find out that dependency without looking at each formula. 

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