Forum Discussion
Dataflow Gen1 can't use Value.Metadata trick
Hii jeroenyahroon
In Power BI Desktop the trick works because the local Mashup engine keeps the metadata record attached to the value during evaluation, so Value.Metadata(QueryA)[variable] can be read by another query. In Dataflow Gen1, the cloud refresh engine re-evaluates and often drops/doesn’t persist custom metadata across queries/refresh, so after save/refresh that metadata record is no longer there hence “field ‘variable’ wasn’t found” even though the preview (client-side) looked fine. The practical workaround is: don’t rely on metadata for cross-query step references in Gen1 move the shared logic into a function/query you call from both, or explicitly materialize the needed step/output as its own query and reference that instead.
Super UserHii jeroenyahroon
In Power BI Desktop the trick works because the local Mashup engine keeps the metadata record attached to the value during evaluation, so Value.Metadata(QueryA)[variable] can be read by another query. In Dataflow Gen1, the cloud refresh engine re-evaluates and often drops/doesn’t persist custom metadata across queries/refresh, so after save/refresh that metadata record is no longer there hence “field ‘variable’ wasn’t found” even though the preview (client-side) looked fine. The practical workaround is: don’t rely on metadata for cross-query step references in Gen1 move the shared logic into a function/query you call from both, or explicitly materialize the needed step/output as its own query and reference that instead.