Solved: Re: Ask a Question and Analyze - Do not work in De...

dancarr22 · ‎03-11-2018

Hello,

We are Power BI Pro users. We have several Excel files which we refresh (to Power BI Service/web) daily. This works.

When users access this data we advise them to reference the Power BI Service. This works.

But, when users access this data from the desktop - Ask a Question is grayed out and Analyze (on right-click) does not work. If users log in to Power BI web and access the same service/dataset - these features do work. Also, on the desktop we have all preview features checked off. And, the desktop pbix which pointsdirectly to these Excel files (which we use as a base to publish) also works properly - Ask a question and Analyze work.

How can we get Ask a Question and Analyze to work from desktop when referencing a Power BI service?

Thanks,

Dan

v-shex-msft · ‎03-12-2018

HI @dancarr22,

AFAIK, power bi has disabled most of edit features when you use live connection mode. Based on test, I found Q&A feature also be disabled.

Maybe you can submit an idea about enable this feature in live connection mode.

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

Community Support Team _ Xiaoxin
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Anonymous · ‎04-06-2018

Seems like we are jumping to the conclusion of Microsoft's default answer of "working as designed" - ie- Are we sure this is not a Bug versus an Enhancement Request. I understand many edit features are turned off.. However - from Desktop - I am able to publish the report (connected to Power BI service) and then go into edit mode online and Q&A works.. and is Editable. This is also a "live connection" to the dataset in another report.

This is, unfortunately, a huge hit for us being able to use Q&A - We keep our datasets in reports as "centralized datasets" and then via desktop connect and create new reports off that "centralized dataset report" ... but if it only works online for reports connecting to another "dataset report" - it will get over-written when published from desktop - (reports connected to Power BI service)