Reuse data model across Power BI Files on Desktop and Report Server

[rajiv_tarafdar]

Hi Guys, 

Our clients is using Power BI Desktop and Report Server April 2018 for Reporting and Analytics. One of them have grown to build more than 200 dashboards / reports. They have a recurring problem of having to recreate data models and implement changes across data models for the same changes. 

E.g. A Customer Table used in 10 Power BI Reports on the Report Server needs to be individually changed in each report when there is a  change in the underlying Customer Table. The fact that Reports and Data Sets are combined in the report is making t hard for the team to keep up with the changes and keeping the model standard across the reports. 

We also have situation where calculation created / updated in One Report needs to be duplicated and modified in all the reports which need the same calculations. It becomes hard to find out where these columns have been used and then to replicate the changes. The client cannot use Power BI Service and does not want to use Reporting Server Dataset due to unreliable data models. 

This is a growing problem with more than one customer now and has already reached pain threshold for one. 

Does anything know how to solve this issues without using Power BI Service or Reporting Server Data Sets? We want to create a single data model that can be used by multiple Power BI Reports on the Report Server. 

Thanks for reading and your time. 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to self service reporting. (also known as data chaos)

Creating a managed data model in SSAS Tabular and using live query connections would be one way to address this. Though until PBI-SSRS supports mixed mode mashups this still has some limitations, you only get what's in the model and can't supplement it.

You can of course extract the models to document them which might help track down where stuff is used, what the calcs that are in place are and generally make tracking stuff down a bit simpler. But that's just centralising the info about the reports that have been deployed. It doesn't actually help you manage the data model but you will be able to see whats going on.

[rajiv_tarafdar]

Thank you Stpnet. We have tried the tabular model way and it highly restricts Power BI functions like DAX. This is surely an option but makes Power Bi practically useless and we might as well use SSRS. Woukd love to know if Microsoft have this separation of data sets from Visual is the roadmap for Report Server.
THank you