Direct Query Large Data Volumes

[supton]

Hello everyone! I think I am struggling to understand even some basic concepts of Power BI. I seem to be unable to report on large sets of data, even using direct query. I am connected to an azure sql database, and some of the tables I am reporting on seem to run just fine. But there is one in particular that has around 1.5 million records, and I cant seem to figure out a way to report on this data properly. I understand that there is a 1 million row limit to power BI ( from here https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-desktop-use-directquery/), but it states that "For example, you can aggregate 10 million rows with your query that runs on the data source, and accurately return the results of that aggregation to Power BI using DirectQuery as long as the data returned to Power BI is less than 1 million rows.", so I attempted to modify the query itself and used a group by clause on a particular column, which should ultimately bring down the record count of that 1.5 million record table to around 100. However, this does not seem to work either, as the query times out (because it takes too long) and continues to create locking conflicts on my visualizations. How then, is it even possible to report on large sets of data in azure? Thank you in advanced for your responses, I really appreciate the time!

[v-yuezhe-msft]

Hi @supton,

You write specific SQL query in “SQL statement” to limit rows when connecting to Azure SQL database in Power BI Desktop, right? If so, have you set a high value in "Command timeout in minutes" ?

Regards,
Lydia Zhang

[supton · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the response! I actually wasnt writing the SQL queries directly, but when I switched to a "Native Database Query", it seemed to work properly (even if it still takes quite a while to load). Thank you!

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@supton,

Glad to hear the issue is solved. Please accept appropriate replies as solution, that way, other community members would easily find the answer when they get same issues.

Regards,
Lydia Zhang