Register now to learn Fabric in free live sessions led by the best Microsoft experts. From Apr 16 to May 9, in English and Spanish.
Hello all,
I can see that my models will get complex fast--and code is very decentralized--being embedded in Queries, column adds, and measures (more maybe when you also look at visualizations)
How do you all document your code...perhaps make a data dictionary of computed cols and measures and the like? Is there anything that auto does that?
Thanks,
Tom
PS: was just reading about corruption in models on this forum and it has me want to be smart, presuming that possible (on any level)
Solved! Go to Solution.
My documentation style is pretty low tech as these things go. Nothing automated but it's easy enough.
I write most of my columns and measures out in Notepad++ and then copy it into Power BI. The advantages here are 1) you can format your code nicely without trouble and 2) your documentation is half-done already. Especially if you comment your code as you go.
Beyond that it's mostly a matter of organizing the code and documenting the queries. For the queries, open the advanced editor and copy all that code. You can later recreate any query instantly by pasting that back into a blank query*.
For the documentation itself, my preference is to organize by tables. A brief description of the data represented, the query, a list of the columns and their data types, then the custom columns in alphabetic order and the measures, same.
I tend to create master datasets and use them each for several different reports, so I tend not to document the reports themselves very extensively. I just keep a changelog of requests that I get about them, because everyone around here likes to change their minds about what charts they want to see. One changelog per report, starting with a note about which dataset it's coming from.
I've had to recreate one lost report so far. The original took about a week, the recovery took about three hours, and to be fair I was watching a movie while I did it.
*Assuming in some cases that you've already established a connection and credentials with the data source from the machine you're working at.
Proud to be a Super User!
How to connect PBI to DAX Studio: http://exceleratorbi.com.au/getting-started-dax-studio/
incl. tons of other awesome stuff you can do with it!
Imke Feldmann (The BIccountant)
If you liked my solution, please give it a thumbs up. And if I did answer your question, please mark this post as a solution. Thanks!
How to integrate M-code into your solution -- How to get your questions answered quickly -- How to provide sample data -- Check out more PBI- learning resources here -- Performance Tipps for M-queries
No, you have to export to file (txt) and then open it in Excel/Power Query.
And sorry, no idea about the sorting.
Imke Feldmann (The BIccountant)
If you liked my solution, please give it a thumbs up. And if I did answer your question, please mark this post as a solution. Thanks!
How to integrate M-code into your solution -- How to get your questions answered quickly -- How to provide sample data -- Check out more PBI- learning resources here -- Performance Tipps for M-queries
I've downloaded DAX Studio and it looks great. I love a programming environment where I can do debugging and documenting. As a beginner, this will be a huge help. Thank you, Tom
I have installed and opened my pbix model in DAX Studios and it's very interesting. I'm really looking forward to the accelerated learning not to mention the extraction/documenting of my work it will provide. Thank you again @ImkeF for the links. Tom
Its really very tedious to document everything we do with the PBI files
For the Calculated Columns (C) and Measures (M) I keep a huge spreadsheet containing...
Type --- Name --- Formula --- Data Type --- Format --- Home Table --- Etc...
C/M
It will be nice if they add something like the Manage Measures dialog-box in PowerPivot but with improved functionality
Where we can export to Excel a table like the above containing the information for ALL Measures in ALL tables
Even if its only for the Measures and includes only Name and Formula this would save us lots of time.
Covering the world! 9:00-10:30 AM Sydney, 4:00-5:30 PM CET (Paris/Berlin), 7:00-8:30 PM Mexico City
Check out the April 2024 Power BI update to learn about new features.
User | Count |
---|---|
109 | |
98 | |
80 | |
64 | |
57 |
User | Count |
---|---|
145 | |
111 | |
92 | |
84 | |
66 |