Key influencers vs re-usable measures and source control. Am I missing something?

[jdbuchanan71]

If I want to take advantage of the Key Influencer visual (as well as other upcoming AI enable visuals I assume) the data must be held in the PowerBI service.  This is fine except when it comes to authoring re-usable measures and source control. 

One of the main benefits of developing a tabular model in Visual Studio and SSDT is the structure and measures, the semantic definition of the model, is de-coupled from the data so the size is small.  This makes it fast to publish changes and use source control but you cannot use the AI visuals with live connection to either on-prem SSAS or Azure Analysis Services from what I have seen.

If I want to hold the data in the PowerBI service (so I can use Key Influencers) and I want to re-use measures across multiple PowerBI reports (using  Get Data > PowerBI dataset) I have to maintain those measures in a .PBIX file that is the “master” model.  Unfortunately it also has all the data so I am trying to push a very large file, sometimes several GB, up to the service when all I want to do is add one more measure.  This also doesn’t work well with source control.

I have looked into data flows, Azure Analysis Services and importing from the SSAS model (this converts measures to their unfiltered scalar value).

Am I missing something?  Is there  way I can

• House the data on the PowerBI service while at the same time
• Maintaining a model that is just the model, not the data.  This will allow for:
• Source control
• Master measures available to additional reports that aren’t sitting in a huge .PBIX file.

Thank you,

John

[v-juanli-msft]

Hi @jdbuchanan71 

There are several ways to re-usable measures and source control in Power BI.

Use Quick measures to easily perform common and powerful calculations

Use a template which can be instantiated as a new Power BI Desktop report (PBIX file).

Deep Dive into Query Parameters and Power BI Templates

HOW TO CREATE A POWER BI TEMPLATE

Bulk Measure Operations in Power BI using tabular editor

Best Regards
Maggie

Community Support Team _ Maggie Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[jdbuchanan71]

Hello @v-juanli-msft ,

Thank you for the information, I was not aware of the Tabular Editor.  Unfortunalty I don't think any of the links will do what I am looking for.  Perhaps I didn't ask a focused enough quesiton.

1. In order to use the Key Influencers visual, the data must be loaded to the PowerBI service.
2. To write measures that can be reused in other reports they need to be in a 'master model' the you use as a data source for the other reports (in SSAS and VS this is Model.bim)
3. This means I end up with a .pbix file that has my 'master model' with all the measures and relationships AND also has 3 GB of data.

Are those statements correct or am I missing something that would allow me to de-couple the model from the data but still use the Key Influencers and other up coming AI visuals?