A SQL DB to Power BI join/relationship question.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am building a report with data from a SQL Server DB. The SQL DB does have relationships configured, however a lot of the joining tables are empty, therefore these configured relationships will not work. The developers of the SQL DB use other tables, that contain data, to do the joins by using the uniqueidentiifer column of those tables. Only the developers would know this is possible. Someone like me looking at the DB's ERD will see the relationships configured through looking at the empty tables.

When importing the tables into Power BI, the configured relationships are recognised and created in Power BI. I then have to go in and add the relationships the developers have told me to use. This can created ambiugity.

So question is, should I delete the relationships Power BI has identified and simply created those the developers have told me about?

What's the normal practice?
Thanks.

[v-qiuyu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

When we load two or more tables at the same time, Power BI desktop will looks at column names in the tables we are querying to determine if there are any potential relationships. If there are, those relationships are created automatically.

So in your scenario, if the relationships told by SQL DBA is the same as Power BI detect, then you needn't to modify them. While the logic is different, you can mange relationships follow this article based on your needs. See: Create and manage relationships in Power BI Desktop.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu