Golden Dataset Questions

[HelenBrunyee]

Hello Everyone,

I have been in huge rabbit holes on here and Google, but cannot seem to find the specific answers I am looking for regarding Power BI Golden Datasets, hopefully someone can help clear this up.

My company is looking to move our large amount of PBI reports to point at a golden dataset to save on refreshes/space/complexity etc. This will be a huge project for me and has raised the following questions when trying to set this up:

• I've worked out that I can point a specific to a golden dataset, but then also bring in extra tables/data for that one report, using the 'Transform data' > 'add local model' > 'new source' .... When publishing this, it creates a new dataset. Does this mean when I set this new dataset to refresh, it is refreshing both the golden dataset & the extra tables OR just the extra tables as they golden dataset has it's own refresh schedule?
• We have a lot of reports (hense swapping to a golden dataset), so I'm wondering what the best mehtod is when swapping out the old dataset to the golden dataset? Is there a way to do this with minimal impact/ is there a way to do this without loosing the report specific measures that I have made? Should I import the golden dataset first then remove the old data? Any advice hugely appreciated.

Hope that all makes sense! Sorry for the potentially obvious questions, golden dataset newbie here 🙂

Thanks in advance,

Helen

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

@HelenBrunyee If you are using DirectQuery then refresh does not affect DirectQuery data sources, just the data sources in your local model (composite dataset). The second question is tough to answer. If you don't want to lose what you have then you could try adding the DirectQuery connection to your existing reports and then refactoring. Although, I might be tempted to go the other route with that and use it as an opportunity to clean things up. So start a new report with the DirectQuery connection and then copy over only what you need.

[HelenBrunyee]

Thanks so much for getting back to me @Greg_Deckler , really appreciate it!

So just to confirm when publishing this new report to the web & schduling a refresh, it will only refresh the spreadsheet and not both the spreadsheet and the live power BI dataset? The live power Bi dataset part with refresh with whatever schedule I have set up on there? Hope that makes sense!

Thanks for your advice for the second query too - I completely agree & will use it as an opportunity to tidy things up!

Thanks so much again,

Helen

[Greg_Deckler]

@HelenBrunyee Yes, that is my understanding. Since for the 2nd report the dataset is a Live/DirectQuery query, from that report's perspective, there is no reason to refresh that data because it is not part of the import model, it is a live connection to a data source that is assumed to be up-to-date.

[HelenBrunyee]

@Greg_Deckler You're a Star! Thank you so much for clarifying 🙂