Data source settings management

[Jonathan_P]

Hello,

We develop reports and dashboards for client companies. Basically, we help them get up-and-running and support them with Power BI.

Our methodology is the following:

First, for now, it is based on SQL Server databases only. We have their backup restored locally on our development SQL Server.

So while developing the Power BI reports with Desktop, we connect to local data sources. We test it by publishing the reports on our own Office 365 space.

At deployment-time, we change the data source settings to put those from production environment (server and database name). We then publish the reports using one of their Power BI account license. We are doing it from our development machines.

The problem is that whenever we need to do modifications to a report/dataset, on Desktop, we need to change the data source settings back to the development ones in order to test.

Right now, it is a pain...

Is there a clean way to manage it?

Can we use the hosts file on our development machines?

Basically, we need to do matching between production server name and development server name somewhere.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[v-ljerr-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jonathan_P,

As far as I know, there is no a cleaner way, but manually change the data source within Data Source Settings or Advanced Editor currently. So I would suggest you submit your requirement on Power BI Ideas to improve Power BI on this feature. 

Regards

[Jonathan_P]

@v-ljerr-msft, thanks for you reply. I just submitted my idea here: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/18927730-add-data-source-settings....