Issue with Power BI Web Service: Inconsistent Behavior of Bidirectional Relationships in Data Model

[mfalcesr]

Hello Power BI Community,

I'm encountering a perplexing issue with the Power BI web service and am wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Problem Overview: I have a warehouse with several tables for which I've created a relationship model. However, I'm facing a problem with the stability of these relationships. All of the following problems stated are happening when i use PowerBi in combination with the Microsoft Fabric services (warehouses, pipelines, dataflows...)

Specifically the problem is:

1. Relationships Changing Automatically:

   • After setting up some relationships as 1-to-many bidirectional, I've noticed that, after a few minutes, some of these relationships automatically change to unidirectional without any intervention from my side.
   • This automatic change affects the Power BI reports that use this model, as evidenced by alterations in the graphs.

2. No Issues of Ambiguity:

   • I have confirmed that there's no ambiguity in the relationships that could be causing this issue.

3. Re-importing Tables:

   • In an attempt to resolve this, I deleted the problematic tables and re-imported them into the warehouse.
   • Oddly, the Power BI report remained unaffected by the deletion of the tables for about an hour.
   • When the report finally recognized the missing data and I attempted to reconnect it, the model erroneously indicated that the relationships between the tables still existed, which should be impossible since I had deleted and re-imported the tables.

Seeking Community Insight: Has anyone else faced similar issues with bidirectional relationships in Power BI web service? Any insights or suggestions on how to address these problems would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Best regards

[v-xiaoyan-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @mfalcesr ,

The function in Power BI works from the many to one side RELATED. So, if you’re trying to use to grab only contacts with a related job record, you might need to build the data from the job records RELATED. Also, there’s an option to deactivate “Autodetect new relationships after data is loaded” which might help.

Automatic Relationships | Zebra BI Knowledge Base

The delay you’re experiencing in report updates might be due to how Power BI handles data refreshes. Power BI Desktop has an option called “Include in report refresh” in the query editor. If this option is disabled, the report in Power BI Desktop will not update. Also, after a refresh, it might take 10-15 minutes for the changes to be reflected in the dashboard tiles.

Best regards.
Community Support Team_Caitlyn