Document Power BI Reports - Extract Report Metadata

[keviwilso]

Hi,

We need to document the enterprise power bi reports as part of a handover to support. Is there a way to generate / extract the report metadata from the PBIX files ?- i.e. data source connection, Columns Used on the report, Visualisation type and properties, Filters etc. This would also be useful for impact assessments - particuarly if we can derive table.columns used on the report.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Kevin 

[v-xjiin-msft]

Hi @keviwilso,

Generally, if you want to extract columns used on report. You can use Power Query Table.ColumnNames() function. 

Then about extracting metadata, I think you can refer to following article:

http://radacad.com/exposing-m-code-and-query-metadata-of-power-bi-pbix-file 

Thanks,
Xi Jin.

[keviwilso]

Thanks for the reply Xi Jin.

I check out your suggestions below which were useful, however it is not clear on how to use Power Query Table.ColumnNames() function. in this context?

I did find this really helpful tool on the the radacad.com website which gives me what I want but unfortunately I cannot export the results - hopefully it will be enhanced to do so.

Check out the Power BI Helper tool

http://radacad.com/power-bi-helper

http://radacad.com/expression-dependency-tree-new-feature-of-power-bi-helper

 Cheers

Kevin

[tjrobertsnz]

Hi Kevin,

Did you manage to work out how to do this? Have you checked out Data Vizioner (https://www.datavizioner.com)? Its designed to help you document BI dashboards so it shows many of the things you mentioned in your post.

Tim

[v-xjiin-msft]

Hi @keviwilso,

Sorry but this is the third party tool. we don't support it and I haven't used it before. I'm afraid that I cannot help you on this part.

Thanks,
Xi Jin.