Lakehouse/Warehouse Model : tables displayed with top blue dotted line

[GuillaumeBer]

Hello, I browsed the Fabric documentation for Data Modeling in Fabric but I could find the meaning of this blue dotted line on top of tables in Model view/designer

PS: in the documentation page URL given above, the blue lines are shown in full and mine dotted ; I'm sure this has some sort of importance, but what can it be ?  Storage mode maybe ? can the lines have other colors ?

[Joshrodgers123]

I think the blue-dotted line indicates the storage mode of the tables being direct lake.

[v-nikhilan-msft]

Hi  @GuillaumeBer 
The Card Header refers to the storage mode that is used for the table, which would be Direct Lake mode in this case. Colours can be different when the model contains multiple data sources in a single semantic model.

Please refer to these links for more information:https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-november-2020-feature-summary/#_Toc55467054

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/transform-model/desktop-relationship-view

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

[GuillaumeBer]

Hi @v-nikhilan-msft , thanks for the documentation link but then what is show in my initial screenshot post is contradicting the documentation. I'm in Direct Lake mode and the table card header is blue dotted line in PowerBI Service (/Fabric UI) and straigh blue line in Power BI desktop (for the same semantic model)

and the doc link you shared is saying something else 🤔

[v-nikhilan-msft]

Hi @GuillaumeBer 

That's because when you connect to a Direct Lake semantic model with Power BI Desktop you are in "Live Connect" mode without a local model.  The tables don't have a "Storage mode" because you don't have a local model.  The model explorer in this mode uses a solid blue header because the behavior is similar to DirectQuery.  If you add a data source to this model it will warn you that you need to add a local model, in which case you will have changed from "Live Connect" mode to DirectQuery mode, and the tables will still have the blue header.

Power BI Desktop currently doesn't support editing Direct Lake models, only consuming them.  When it supports Direct Lake model editing, the tables should display as in the Fabric portal.

Hope this helps.

[fabric_user]

In the documentation, it says that the dotted (hashed) line means that the table is in dual mode (both import mode and DirectQuery).

So there seems to be some kind of contradiction, if these tables really are in Direct Lake mode?

I am also having a View in my Data Warehouse, which has this symbol and also shows Direct Lake when I hover over the View in my data model. I didn't think that Direct Lake works for a View in Data Warehouse, so may be some contradiction in the user interface here? (Or if a view in data warehouse works with Direct Lake I will be happy about that 😀)

Thanks 🙂

[v-nikhilan-msft]

Hi @GuillaumeBer , @fabric_user 
Thanks for the information. This can be better addressed by our internal team. So, I suggest you to create a support ticket for this issue here:  
https://support.fabric.microsoft.com/en-US/support/

Thanks

[v-nikhilan-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @GuillaumeBer , @fabric_user 
I have followed up with the internal team and got an update. There is a pending decision on how to represent Direct Lake mode tables, so it's defaulting to 'Dual' mode. The behavior will be updated soon and our internal team is working on it. Currently there is no ETA for this fix. Appreciate your patience.

[v-nikhilan-msft]

Hi @GuillaumeBer 
We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if your query got resolved. Otherwise, will respond back with the more details and we will try to help.
Thanks

[v-nikhilan-msft]

Hi @GuillaumeBer 
Thanks for using Fabric Community. 
At this time, we are reaching out to the internal team to get some help on this. We will update you once we hear back from them.
Thanks