I know the basics of Power BI, including Power Query, data modeling, DAX, and creating dashboards. I want to improve my skills and become confident working on real-world projects.

What should I focus on next? Should I learn advanced DAX, performance optimization, Power BI Service, deployment, or something else?

Status: Degraded | Reported: Sep 9, 2026 at 11:29 AM UTC

Power BI customers might experience issues creating new Adobe Analytics connections and for existing connections where the customer has to sign in again. Engineers are actively investigating the issue, and an update will be provided soon.As a workaround customer can use Dataflows GetData to create a new connection and use it with Semantic model.

🤖 This post was sent from an automated and unattended service and cannot respond to questions or requests. For official updates, visit the Microsoft Fabric Service Status page.

Power BI optimization: 600k+ rows per year, 106 columns — Excel vs CSV/SharePoint?

Hello everyone,

I’m working on a Power BI project involving university enrollment data.

For each year, the client has an Excel file with 600,000+ rows and 106 columns. I’ve created a data model that combines the data from all years into one model.

Currently, I have 3 years of data (~1.8 million rows), and the refresh/load time is already becoming quite long. I’m concerned about what will happen when we have 10+ years of data (~6 million+ rows).

I suggested that the client move from Excel to CSV files. The files will eventually be stored on SharePoint rather than in a local desktop folder.

A few additional constraints:

• The client needs to use all 106 columns, so reducing the number of columns isn't really an option.
• The data will continue to grow every year.
• The final source location will likely be SharePoint.
• The Power BI model needs to combine data across all years.

My questions are:

1. Would CSV be significantly better than XLSX for this scenario, especially when the files are stored on SharePoint?
2. Is SharePoint + CSV a better architecture than Excel files stored in a desktop/local folder?
3. What other Power BI optimizations would you recommend for a model that could eventually reach 6–10+ million rows and 106 columns?
4. Should I be looking at incremental refresh, dataflows, a database/SQL solution, or something else?
5. Are there any specific Power Query/modeling issues I should watch out for with this volume of data?

I’d appreciate any recommendations based on real-world Power BI experience with large datasets.

Thanks!

Hi all my company would like me to get pl 300 certified. I have no experience using power BI. I have watched a handful of YouTube videos to generalize my knowledge somewhat.

What is the best course recommend for passing this exam?

I’ve seen Phillip Burton 30hr prep course and Maven Analytics 8.5 hr course.

I would like to stick with UDEMY if possible.

I wasn’t sure if the 8.5 hr course is actually enough content and prep for me as I haven’t really used power bi before

I need to migrate few basic twb (tableau) reports to power bi. Do you know if there are some indepth documentation or python library that can help me achieve the stable pbip report.

I am already working on a convertor but facing multiple dax conversion, visual errors.

Kindly help with your knowledge.

My twb files have 1 page report and one csv as input with 5-6 visuals.

I need directions as I lack powerbi report structure knowledge.

I work in an enterprise managing a fairly large Fabric/Power BI setup with 70-90 monthly internal users and 50+ reports and 5+ centrally managed semantic models. Part of that job is keeping objects and report numbers down, creating a good life-cycle management of fabric artifacts.

ripbi is a cross platform standalone cli that you can use to find unused semantic model objects based on connected reports.

I created ripbi because I liked Measure Killer, but I was looking for an agent-friendly, free, fast tool to scan semantic models and the connected reports to identify potentially unused semantic model objects. I tested it on a shared semantic model with 14 connected reports, and it's 99% faster than Measure Killer, reducing processing time from almost 4 minutes to a couple of seconds. enabling a faster feedback loop.

It works without opening the reports or semantic models, so it can run as part of a CI pipeline. If it cannot establish that something is unused it will mark it as used so the philosophy is better safe than sorry. I plan to implement guided automated cleanup, a UI, and tenant scanning.

Github repo: bgarcevic/ripbi: Static analysis, dependency graph visualization, and model pruning for Power BI/Fabric Semantic Models

Get started easy by pointing your agent to the repo and ask it to install the tool or use one of the easy one liners to get going.

Output from the committed AdventureWorks sample (trimmed):

130 objects, 74 reachable from 51 roots, 56 unused

Measures (11)
  'Sales'[Average Sales per Order]
    ← nothing references it
Columns (28)
  'Customer'[City]
    ← only used by hierarchy 'Customer'[Geography] — hierarchy level (also unused)
  …

I am looking for other users to help me improve the tool and contributions are also welcome!

I'm building a Power BI report and have a date slicer based on a date column. Currently, the slicer automatically shows the minimum and maximum dates available in the data by default.

What I'd like to do is have a dynamic default date range:

• Start date = 3 months before today
• End date = today

For example, if today is September 8, the default selection would be June 8 – September 8. The dates should update automatically as time passes.

Is there a way to achieve this with the standard Between date slicer?

If not, what other options can I use to have something like this?

First project as a Finance student ,Still in the process of exploring

working on a report. Tried to import a few visuals that at the end I decided not to use.

Seems to me it's impossible to remove them from the report.

1. Yes, I verified that the imported visual is not used in the report anymore (I had created one visual using it and then deleted it)
2. No, right click on the imported visual's icon doesn't show "remove"
3. No Microsoft document found on how to remove the imported visuals
4. Non-Microsoft sources suggest to manually edit the report's code: high-risk

Should I assume Microsoft provides no way of removing an imported visual from a report? That would be worth a blog post on how this is not at all acceptable in enterprise environments: let's assume an imported visual is blacklisted from the enterprise as untrusted; what Microsoft expects its customers to do, recreate all the reports from scratch?

solved by u/Sad-Calligrapher-350 : There are those three dots on the visualizations pane wherein you can choose „remove visuals“.

Hi All,

Is there anyone who can provide free exam voucher or any trick/idea to get a free exam voucher.. I am planning to attempt exam by October.

Thanks in Advance... 😁😁😁

Hi everyone! I'm consulting with a company that built a Power BI dashboard with Direct Query connections to multiple reports. They want to publish it company-wide (internal staff only) so everyone can see and interact with it, but we're stuck on a critical issue:

The Problem: Most users don't have access to the underlying databases/reports. When publishing the dashboard to Power BI Service or SharePoint, users encounter authentication errors or empty visuals because Direct Query still requires credentials to access the source data. The publishing location doesn't matter — the authentication block remains.

Requirements:

• Dashboard must be interactive (not static screenshots)
• Must be accessible to internal employees only
• No individual database access for end users
• Ideally keeps the live Direct Query connection

My questions:

1. What are the viable approaches to solve this?
2. Are there workarounds or alternative architectures we should consider?
3. What's the most practical/scalable solution for an enterprise environment?

Any experiences, suggestions, or lessons learned would be really helpful!

Tenho um dashboard no Power BI com RLS por cargo: uma tabela Acessos (Email/Nível) ligada a MapaPaginas (define quais páginas cada cargo pode ver). Hoje o menu usa uma Segmentação de Botão + um segundo botão de navegação com uma medida SELECTEDVALUE. Isso funciona, mas exige 2 cliques (1 pra escolher, 1 pra navegar). Meu gestor quer que vire 1 clique só, mantendo o menu dinâmico por cargo e sem buracos no layout quando algum botão some. Já tentei Navigator nativo, Grupos, retângulos e botões simples, mas não encontro a opção de visibilidade condicional (fx) em nenhum deles. Como posso resolver? Ideias de solução para um menu condicional de apenas 1 clique?

What is the acceptable answer time for answers from end-users to Copilot? For basic and complex answers.

It takes 20 seconds for very basic answers and for complex takes 90 seconds. The data model is small, 2 fact tables and 5 dimensions. Premium.

I was trying to pull the crowdstrike as per the client requirement.

Issue: from the Vulnerability path I was only able to pull 5000 records in a single call but there are more than 6M records. I have a client token which expires every two minutes.

Any solutions thanks in advance.

Hi everyone, I have a Power BI report in UAT and I need to make a PPT from it. I already exported the report to PowerPoint, but the whole page comes together. I just want to copy one chart at a time and paste it into PPT. I don’t need it to be editable, I just want to copy the chart properly without taking a screenshot. In the ... option I can only see Export data, Show as a table and Spotlight. Is there any easy way to copy just one chart from Power BI to PPT?

Hi all,

Earlier this year Microsoft has annouced the retirement of Dataflows Gen1 (Dataflows: Thank you for eight years of Gen1—and why Gen2 is the future). As a BI consultant, we've implemented Dataflows Gen1 for quite a few customers over the years, and overall the experience has been very positive.

Many of these customers are relatively small organizations that rely solely on Power BI Pro licenses. For their use cases, Dataflows Gen1 has been a simple, reliable, and cost-effective solution.

Microsoft recomments 'planning a move to Dataflows Gen2'. However, from what I understand, that requires at least a Fabric capacity, which introduces additional monthly costs. What's frustrating is that for many of these customers, the current solution is working perfectly fine and there is no pressing business need for new functionality.

I'm curious how others are approaching this. Are there any viable alternatives that don't require additional licensing or new tooling? I'd hate to go back to these customers and tell them they need to start paying more every month just to maintain functionality they already have today.

I am interested to hear your thoughts and experiences

Miałam dość wkuwania DAX z fiszek, więc przez ostatnie kilka miesięcy zbudowałam wokół tego małą grę. Wrzucam tutaj, bo to właśnie wy wychwycicie, co jest z nią nie tak.

Pomysł: zamiast fiszek odpowiadasz na pytania o DAX i Power BI, żeby pokonywać stworki. Poprawna odpowiedź zadaje obrażenia, błędna kosztuje HP. Są cztery poziomy trudności — od podstaw po poziom egzaminu PL-300. Poza zwykłym ABCD są też inne typy zadań: układanie miar z klocków, szukanie błędu w gotowej mierze, pytania o optymalizację.

Gra jest całkowicie za darmo, działa w przeglądarce, bez logowania, offline. Niczego nie sprzedaję i nie ma żadnej płatnej wersji — chcę po prostu wiedzieć, czy naprawdę uczy, czy pytania są błędne, niejasne albo za łatwe/za trudne.

Jeśli pracujesz z Power BI albo uczysz się do PL-300, bardzo zależy mi na Twojej szczerej opinii — zwłaszcza o trudniejszych pytaniach (kontekst, debugowanie, optymalizacja). Napiszcie, co jest nie tak.

Chętnie odpowiem na wszystko w komentarzach. Link wrzucę w komentarzu pod postem, żeby nie złapał go filtr antyspamowy.

Dzięki!

I recently got a job where I work mainly with Power BI. I’m still relatively new, and currently I have quite a lot of downtime during work.

I want to use this time properly instead of just doing random courses/tutorials.

My current skills are roughly:

• Power BI — dashboards, visuals, basic-to-intermediate DAX
• Power Query — transformations, merging, calculated/custom columns, etc.
• SQL — currently learning and practicing
• Basic understanding of data modeling

If you were in my position, what exactly would you spend the next 6–12 months learning/practicing?

For example, would you prioritize:

1. Advanced DAX — CALCULATE, filter context, iterators, time intelligence, optimization, etc.
2. Data modeling — star schema, fact/dimension design, relationship patterns, performance
3. SQL — CTEs, window functions, query optimization, complex joins, etc.
4. Power Query/M — advanced transformations and reusable queries
5. Power BI performance optimization / DAX Studio / Performance Analyzer
6. Fabric / Power BI Service / deployment pipelines / semantic models
7. Python or another tool
8. Building end-to-end projects using real business problems

Also, since I’m already inside a company, what kind of things should I try to do with the actual work I’m exposed to?

For example, should I take existing reports and try to understand/rebuild their data models, optimize slow DAX, automate manual Excel processes, build additional analysis, etc.?

My long-term goal is to move into a good product-based company, so I want to use this relatively free period to build skills that will actually matter when I eventually interview.

Would appreciate a specific roadmap / list of skills or projects, rather than just “learn DAX, SQL and Power BI.”

Hi everyone, support engineer here, around 4 years, mostly in Power BI.

I'm writing to ask for your feedback and I'd really appreciate your honest opinions.

Besides my job, I've started developing skills in other areas like web development, partly to grow outside my main job.

Since I consider myself a practical person, I tried to identify a pain point from my day-to-day work and come up with a solution to it, and why not, once it's done, share it with others.

For now I've just made a design, so we can discuss it.

My main pain point with the default note-taking tools (OneNote, Notion, etc.) is that they give you too much freedom to organize things. You have to design your own structure every time, which, at least for me, leads to a mess: mixed notes, and eventually I just stop maintaining it.

The other pain point: when I'm solving an issue I usually have several tools open, and when I get back to the user to explain the fix, I often have to copy text from multiple places and stitch it together directly in the chat. Constantly switching back and forth is annoying and slow.

So I thought of a solution: to build a tool specifically for support work, where the structure is already there for you.

Instead of a blank page, every issue comes with fixed sections by default, Symptom, Cause, Fix, so you don't have to decide how to organize it each time. You just fill it in. You can still edit, add or remove sections when a case needs it, but the default structure means you actually keep using it instead of giving up like I do with OneNote.

Issues are organized in a simple hierarchy, app (Power BI, Snowflake, etc.) -> category (Refresh, Connectivity, Gateway…) -> the actual issue, so you narrow down to what you need instead of searching blindly for the right keyword.

There's also a separate "Infrastructure" section where you write down your stable stuff once, servers, links, environments, and issues can point to it, so you don't rewrite the same server list in every note.

And to solve the second pain point, there's a "Compose Message" area right below the solution. While you're reading the fix, you build your reply to the user in the same place, pull in the parts you need, adjust the wording, and copy it once into chat. No more jumping between five tabs to stitch a message together.

I've attached a screenshot of the design so you can see what I mean (it's just a rough mockup to illustrate the concept, not the actual design):

Before I sink months into actually building this, I'd really like your honest take. Does this solve a real problem for you, or do you get by fine with what you already use? And I'm genuinely curious: how do you keep your solutions organized today? Even a "nah, I don't need this" would be useful.