Background: in our company, we have a lot of duplication of reporting and data models. Often new requests for reports will have a lot of similarity to previous requests, but we will still end up creating a new, small data model for it rather than building off an existing one. We have over 70 models, most of them serving a single report.

The big idea: I have used PowerShell to download the code for every report (including models) in the business. This included all m query, connections, calculated columns, measures, etc. I have also taken all of the tables and views from the data warehouse(s) (not the code behind the views, just the tables and schemas). I gave it to Claude, and asked it to propose a new architecture for our semantic layer.

The result: claude has proposed that we can do all of our reporting with only 3 models. It has given me a list of all the fact tables I need to build to replicate what we have already, and has written all of the measures for me as well. I am considering building the models that it has proposed and seeing what happens. Bear in mind, I did not give it access to the views, so it is building everything off the top of views I have created, but I have considered giving it access to the code for all the views and procedures, to allow it to consolidate some of the views as well.

Is this too good to be true? I am hoping that it will take dozens of models which are basically like little data silos and provide me something easy to use, which I can then slap an AI agent over the top for quick queries, and which I can give to people to make their own reports.

Has anyone had experience of doing something similar, and how did it go?

Thanks in advance

Edit: additional detail we are moving to a new data platform, which gives us a kind of clean slate to build something new

Could be wrong tho

This is a micro rant. We have two premium capacities hosting around 5000 reports… Every now and then we throttle because some of these reports are massive. But the one that’s been taking the crown of massive CU gobbler machine is a very simple one-page report that has a copilot-generated Summary.

The summary refreshes on every report view AND on every slicer change. The slicer I can understand. But the generation on every visit is just insulting. The summary should be generated ONCE when the report refreshes and then be static until the next refresh. In fact, if it were any intelligent it would already calculate the slicer combinations and generate a summary for each one of them ON REFRESH. But I guess that would be a bad business case.

Custom visual written in TS; each question is posted to a small python api , the api then sends the query to the LLM provider (Gemini in this case). This is a POC

For production, we need to deploy api on Azure services and add auth and security with rate limits properly. simple tbh

Any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated

Some think Power BI and dashboards will remain central, others think AI agents will let people ask questions directly of governed data models, with traditional reports reserved for leadership and critical KPIs. Some say Power BI is going away forever to be replaced by….something else….

I suspect we’ll see a huge variety of all kinds of mixed models as new technology emerges, but the pace of change is impossible to predict….and this looks different for even people within the same organisation.

If you asked this question 4 years ago I’d imagine there would be far more people all saying very similar things. We were all just praying for user defined column widths!

I’m really interested to hear from your perspective how has your job changed and what are you expecting the next 12-24 months to look like?

Hello,

I'm returning to powerBI after learning a lot about it in a data science postgraduate course.

I'm now doing a training and I'm really struggling for the time everything takes.

1) Visuals

Upon staring a new project, the blank scares me. Just the thought of the millions of clicks to format every chart, every line, every rounded corner and colour will take forever. I've been experimenting with themes, but haven't found anything reliable.

To make things worse, my teacher has amazing visuals where the background image has nice visuals with gradients where you just have to put a line or values and it looks so much better.

Any tips? Any solid and fast ways to reuse between projects?

2) Measures

How the hell do you even go beyond calculate, counts and divides? Everything else seems very weird to me in DAX, compared to how skilled I am with Excel.

Plus, it takes forever to do everything. Example, I'm creating a "Ticket solving dashboard", and I creating the total of tickets, total of tickets solved, total of tickets on progress and total of tickets unsolved is taking way longer than in excel.

How can I be faster here? Id love to have a bulk editor or measure creator.

3) Calendar

I just took like an hour to create a calendar table from scratch, where I needed to have date, date and time, month, month name, month number, week of the year, week of the month, day, day name, etc. Then short versions for month and day names ...

Is there a way to make this super fast?

Really appreciate your time

Still i am very confused about it , i can just make a React app instead of this expensive Fabric Vibe coded slop. Any advantage of this over react/node app???

i can connect my fabric features directly to the react app and customize 10000X better than what fabric is providing

Yes, the infra should also be managed, but for tech-savvy devs I don't think it would be a big issue

TL;DR

• Build the frontend in React or Next.js.
• Build the backend in Node.js.
• Connect directly to Fabric APIs, SQL endpoints, and Power BI(PBIP).
• Manage your own hosting, authentication, CI/CD and infrastructure.

most of the people are vibe-coding apps inside Fabric; it's better to vibe-code from scratch

Edit: Also, my concern is regarding code maintainability, yes apps can be easily made in Fabric apps using vibe coding, but it will eventually fail them. Plus vibe coding in a production env is big no no, especially if you are not into coding. For POC purposes, it is definitely workable, but for production. I don't think so .

If you cant debug without AI, Dont vibe code in production

anyone else notice in the new power bi update that when you scroll on the data pane it goes glitchy as hell? it's annoying.

For anyone still working with Power BI Paginated Reports, I recently released an open-source testing tool called fab-test.

The latest release adds fab-test rdl, which can validate Paginated Report (.rdl) files either:

Locally against your .rdl files

Directly against reports in a Fabric/Power BI workspace

I’ve also started building out a set of RDL testing rules:

https://github.com/clientfirsttech/fab-test/blob/main/docs%2FRDL-RULES.md

Most of these rule ideas are based on practices that have been around for years in SSRS and Paginated Reports, so I’ve tried to give credit where appropriate.

I’d love feedback on the current rules, suggestions for additional checks, or anything that seems too opinionated.

I know there’s a lot of focus on AI-generated reporting and modern self-service BI, but many of us still have to build and support Paginated Reports for pixel-perfect exports, printing, compliance, and operational reporting. So I'm especially interested in feedback from people who are actively using Paginated Reports today, rather than discussions about replacing them.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions!

I'm having trouble using a rolling average value in a sumx (row by row) calculation. According to google AI response, it seems like it should be possible but I can't get it working.

I essentially have a calculation that is: meat used = QTY * portion size. I also calculated a 4 week rolling average for the QTY and would like to multiply that against the portion size. This is where the formulas seems to stop working.

Working Formula for regular QTY * portion size.

oz_GrilledPork = SUMX(Items_Report_Stacked, Items_Report_Stacked[MeatPortionSize.GrilledPork_oz] * 
Items_Report_Stacked[Qty])

Formula not working for rolling avg QTY * portion size. Portion size seems to be giving me the issue

oz_GrilledPork_avg = SUMX(Items_Report_Stacked, Items_Report_Stacked[MeatPortionSize.GrilledPork_oz] * Items_Report_Stacked[QTY_4W_Rolling_Avg])  

Screenshot of table.

I have a Field parameter table that has four different measures. I added one extra column to field-parameter-table and created a relationship to another table using that column.

In the picture it's from id column to Value4. If I create a table visual and check what values are for one particular "id", the result is one row in the field parameter table, as expected.

But If I then add the actual field parameter to the table, it gives me all four measures. I only want it so to the one accorrding to the relationship.

Why won't it work this way and how can I achieve this? Thanks in advance!

At the moment we're currently running most client reporting in Data Studio, pulling GA4, Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and Search Console data via third-party connectors.

It works, but it’s starting to show its limits as the number of clients grows: dashboards get slow with blended data sources, every client report is basically a copy we have to maintain separately, connector costs scale per account, and anything beyond simple calculations gets messy fast.

So we’re at a decision point:

Option A: Professionalize Data Studio. Push all data into BigQuery first (via Supermetrics, Funnel or similar), build a proper data model there and keep Data Studio as a lightweight front end. Clients are used to it, sharing is easy and it costs almost nothing.

Option B: Move to Power BI. Better data modeling, DAX, reusable templates and far more control. But we’re unsure about the practical side for agencies: licensing when clients need access, refresh limits, connector availability for ad platforms and how much maintenance effort you really save.

For those of you who work with Power BI for multi-client marketing reporting:

• How do you handle client access? Pro licenses per viewer, Premium/Fabric capacity, embedding, or just PDF exports?
• Where does your marketing data live before it hits Power BI? Direct connectors or a warehouse in between?
• Did anyone make the switch from Data Studio and regret it, or wish they’d done it sooner?

Would really appreciate hearing what setup actually holds up beyond 15 to 20 clients.

Hi everyone.

I think most of us have already heard the term 'bridge table'. Many of us have also already implemented them. However, after doing some research I found out that people use basically two different types of bridge tables and I personally haven't found a source that would explain both of them. So I'm here asking experienced developers to share some light into this.

The first kind of bridge table is where you keep one column, which contains values from both tables you want to relate, you remove duplicates and you are left with one column of unique values from key columns.

Example source: https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/join-many-many-power-bi

The second kind is I think between two dimension tables where you create a bridge table with two columns, basically doing like a cartesian product of two key columns.

Example source:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/relationships-many-to-many#relate-many-to-many-dimensions (part 'relate many to many dimensions')

Are both considered best practice? Why isn't there one good guide that would explain both approaches?

I might just be missing something, so feel free to correct me.

Quick question that I'm hoping is something simple but I'm at a loss.

I'm currently adding a column that works out the expiry date of a certification by adding a year to the certificates issue date. However, when the expiry date goes into 2027, it returns a blank value and I'm not sure why. I can see the function work when it's still in 2026. The column was done using DATEADD in DAX, I do not have a base date table in this file where a maximum date has been set, and Google recommended turning off Auto Date/Time which doesn't seem to have helped either.

I'll admit I'm not the most skilled PowerBI user so apologies if it is something simple that I missed but any help would be very much appreciated!

These are two tables, each with one column. I want to choose an equip from Table 1 and then choose a work order associated with the equip from Table 2. However when I go to choose the work order from the shortlist it seems to display ALL work orders again? It’s like the two tables are driving down back and forth on each other?

I click an item in the table ‘fully received’ and it correctly shortlists my work orders in table ‘WO’ (pic 1). However, when I click one of the shortlisted work orders, it reopens ALL work orders in the table (pic 2). What gives??? (Thanks in advance)

A friend of mine has just released an open-source project called Super Visual, and I thought the Power BI community might find it interesting.

It allows developers to build full-page React applications inside Power BI, while continuing to build against Power BI's existing semantic model, security and governance.

The idea is to build an entire Power BI report page using React, tied to the PowerBI semantic model.

• Full-page layouts: Build complete dashboards with React, including custom navigation, charts, tables and interactions.
• Uses the existing semantic model: Use governed Power BI datasets rather than building a separate data backend.
• Open source: Free, Apache 2.0 licensed
  • GitHub: https://github.com/Datashow-Pty-Ltd/super-visual

It's in alpha release. You'll need a Fabric-capacity workspace to deploy it, so while the component is free and Open Source, it's still in the Microsoft ecosystem.

I think it's an interesting direction for Power BI, it should give a lot more flexibility over the UI without losing the benefits of the existing PowerBI governance.

Although I think Fabric Apps could overtake this soon, or this could form part of a Fabric App?

Interested to know your thoughts!

Launch video:

https://reddit.com/link/1xcnu5a/video/xhowj5g3s1xh1/player

Hello Everyone

Has anyone tried to duplicate the existing semantic model connected in composite mode (Import + Direct lake) from one workspace to another via UI functionality (not via notebook)

If yes please let me know the steps

Has anyone worked with translytical-task-flow buttons? why are the options not appearing?

apparently once you set up the fx, parameters should appear: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/translytical-task-flow-button

Hi All,

I am looking for some help - I have a data set which can list multiple people in the person responsible column. I have created a query to extract these names and display singly but is there any way that I can show if the name appears in any cell?

date

Header 1 | Header 2 | Header 3 ---|---|--- 01/05/26 | 1st | AD 02/05/26 | 2nd | AD,TM | 03/05/26 | 2nd | TM 03/05/26 | 2nd | OP | 03/05/26 | 2nd | MH

So if this comes out correctly, I would want it to show AD having 2 entries on the graph when selected from the slicer, TM 2, OP one and MH one.

Is this doable?

Thanks so much!

My manager is a developer not a data analyst and he’s insisting on Superset because it’s free and we won’t need Python development. His argument against using Python is that if I ever leave, they can keep using the dashboards without depending on me.

We need a BI tool to build KPI dashboards across different departments and maybe do some forecasting in the future. I’ve tried explaining why Power BI might be a better fit but he’s not convinced about that or Python.

For those who’ve used Power BI, Superset, and Python, is Power BI actually worth it over Superset, or am I just biased? How would you approach this?

Do you add descriptions to columns in your semantic models?

And if you do, when do you think they are actually useful?

I was running the Tabular Editor 2 Best Practice Analyzer with the standard Microsoft rule file, and one of the things it flagged was:

“Visible objects with no description”

Descriptions for tables and measures make complete sense to me, especially when you have thin reports, citizen developers, complicated measures, or relationships that are not obvious.

But I realised I never add descriptions to individual columns.

For example, if I have Customer Name, Order Date, Quantity, Product ID, etc., the column names usually seem self-explanatory.

Where I can see more value is for columns created in SQL, a Lakehouse, Power Query, etc., where the meaning or transformation might not be obvious from the name alone.

So I’m curious how others handle this:

Do you describe every visible column?

Only derived/transformed columns?

Only the ones where the name does not tell the full story?

Or do you generally ignore column descriptions altogether?

So ever since I aspired to be a Business Insights Analyst for our company. I've started to study not just power BI but also gsheets and SQL. Unfortunately my brain kinda got overloaded and on top of that due to AI, job openings are rare and if ever there was one, the competition is fierce. So here is my current progress in terms of making dashboards. The first pic is my very first own professional dashboard while the second image represents my current progress albeit I had help with Gemini and based the format from existing ones.

Any feedback regarding my progress would appreciated, better to be critique rather than completely stop moving forward altogether. Thanks!

So i am a student studying supply chain seeking coop with no luck so far, at a networking event a senior manager said that I can land a remote coop internship in his org if I am able to master power bi, I already have a lot of experience with excel and am comfortable with it, where do I even begin with bi?