Which is the best way to rename columns in the dataset?

[kraghavcd]

I have created a report in Power BI and published in an app. It will be used by the end-users in the coming days. Before that, I wanted to change the columns in the underlying dataset to user-friendly names. I want to know which is the best way to change names without disrupting my other measures and calculated columns which are using these column names, should I have to do it from Power Query or in the Fields section? Please help!

[VasTg · Accepted solution]

@kraghavcd 

Do you have the model and visuals in a single PBIX file? If so, I would recommend you to change the name either in model or M query. The visuals and measures will automatically take the new name.

If you have used PBI dataset as a source to build you visuals, all the visuals will break. I would still recommend to rename the columns in the model and fix your report/visual because you might end up creating more reports on the dataset.

If it helps, mark it as a solution
Kudos are nice too

[smpa01]

@kraghavcd  I think a safe way to do it without disrupting any measures

is to renaming the field name in the viz window rather than changing it in the PQWRY dataset.

[kraghavcd]

@smpa01 Hi, thanks for your reply. But will changing the column names in Viz pane change the column names in my underlying dataset? Since I want the users to create their own reports using the dataset, I want to rename the columns. Thanks!

[amitchandak]

I do not think it changes the name of the source columns. but if you have use tablename[columnname]  in the column and you rename the table, it might give an error.

[MFelix]

Hi @kraghavcd ,

Just an additional information that may be used in a good way.

There are some things that you make in the front end of PBI that are reflected on the Query editor and the renaming of columns is one of them.

If you change the name of the columns on a model on the front end if you go to the advance query editor you can see that the additional step for renaming is created this can be usefull for making sure your measure don't break.

There are other steps like deleting columns that are also made on both side simultaneous.

[smpa01]

Changing the column names in the viz pane does not change the column names in the dataset.

So for a column 1 in 3 different viz you can rename the same column to user friendly names as red, orange, blue.