How do I move reports and Dashboards between environments?

[mroomi]

Hi,

So we have multiple environments Dev, Staging and Production for PowerBI.

How do I move the reports or Dashboard from one environment to another? For example if I have created a report in Dev then I need to move it into staging and eventually in production environment.

Do I have to create it three times?

[ykannan]

Hi mroomi,

I recently came across this post. Hope you have some solution in these years. I just want to share what i am doing.

I use Oracle as Backend. To connect, I need TNS entry. I have servers for each environment. Each environment, I have TNS entry to connect to that environment with same name Ex: PBI_TNS. This Name is the server name, I give in Power BI model report. (We have Model and Report files separaetly). We have Dev, QA, Stage and Production workspaces and separate servers where Gate way is installed. Each environment workspace, import the model file in service.  Once development is done, we dont touch the model file and just deploy in each workspace service. Each gateway is connected to each database and in each workspace correosponding Gate way is selected. So just deploy the model file in each workspace so it connects to respective Database.

Hope this helps to some one who is looking for solution.

Thanks,

Yoga

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the answers here.  I have dev, test and production environments for my reporting data sources.  We need these as we are continually developing new ways of slicing and dicing our data.

If I create a report that connects to my dev database, when I want to publish that report to production, I need to change the source of the data from my dev database server to my production database server.  Currently, I can't see any simple way to do that, other than completely re-creating the report.  Similarly, when a change is required, the only way I can see is to manually apply the change to the production report.

I may be missing something very basic here, please feel free to point out how stupid I am, as the answer to this would make my life much easier right now.

[Manar]

Hi SkinnyPete63, Have you found a solution to this? I am facing the same problem right now and couldn't find anything online. 

[deepu299]

We have asked this question when Microsoft is onsite, they confirmed that there is no straight forward path to migrate from one environment to another. I would use desktop to create reports and publish to the environment I need by connection to specific Service. Data Sources and connections need to be modified as needed. 

[Anonymous]

I am not sure if this is the question but this how I'm doing it, assuming for example my Data Source is SQL Server Database:

I have a report named Report_Dev that is based on a Data Source named Source_Dev. 

In order to create a production version of this report I open it in PowerBI Desktop and then from Edit Queries in the Home menu I select Data Source Settings.

I select Change Source and specify the production server (my production server has the same db schema but only the data is differrent) and database I.e., my Data Source is now Source_Prod.  Then I save the PowerBI Desktop file as Report_Prod and publish to a workspace that I have named Prod_Workspace.

[Anonymous]

Yes, that's the problem and that's how we have ended up doing it.  However, for highly complex reports that connect to several different data sources, that's a real pain.  If you are publishing to a Power BI Report Server, you also have to set up the connections there as well, and the refresh schedule.  Not really joined up, but I appreciate it's a difficult nut to crack!

[Fraukje]

Hi @Anonymous,

As far as I understand there is indeed no efficient way to develop reports other than the way you describe, i.e.: create a report on dev environment, then recreate a report on staging, and finally recreate it on production. If there is an easy way, I'm very interesting to learn how!

[Shrap09]

This is ridiculous, I'm in the same situation and I also fail to see how to get that done properly.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@mroomi For a complete answer depending on your scenerio, I would suggest you check out this page and whitepaper on governance and deployment.

On a really high level, I typically handle multiple environments by having a different Power BI Group for each.

All development of reports is done in Desktop files because there is no way to save a copy of my reports in the Service at the moment. And it is a really good idea to have the files just in case something gets corrupted (which has happened).

I deploy to each environment as needed, and the only thing that needs to be re-created is the dashboard. As wonga states, you have many options to share or work on things, but there are some really good ideas in the 52 pages of documentation in the link.

[wonga]

@mroomi

You can use group workspaces (a Power BI Pro feature) as production environments.

If you don't have a Power BI Pro account, you should probably use Power BI Desktop for all your "Development" needs.

Publishing to the Power BI service to your personal workspace would be your test environment.

Sharing with others whether it be through dashboard sharing, organizational content pack or group workspace would be considered production.

Hope this helps clarify things. 

If this reply answered your question, please mark it as a solution thanks.

[mroomi]

Thanks Wonga,

I do have a Pro account and I tried Groups, but the problem with the Group is that you cannot control the access of the users. 

I have some users who has ReadOnly access which cannot be control using the Groups.

Thanks,

Roomi

[v-yuezhe-msft]

Hi mroomi,

Using group in Power BI, you can control that if group members can modify the group's content or can only read it by selecting the following options:

◦Members can edit Power BI content

◦Members can only view Power BI content

Reference:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-service-create-a-group-in-power-bi/

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang