How to Prevent Desktop Re-publishing from replacing editings from workspace

[Anonymous]

Dear Community Users,

I have some questions how to reconcile reports published from Desktop and the vesion with editings from Workspace

Firstly, if I edited a Power BI dashboard report in the online workspace, and Saved it. The update/change is recorded in the report file. But the (refresh) date/time is still the same as it was originally published from the desktop. Why? Is there any way to track the version / online changes of the report? 

2nd, if I updated the PBIx file in the desktop, and republished it, it will replace the report I have edited in the workspace.

Question: If other team members have edited the report, and later I need to update (like importing new data, creating new dax measures) and republish it from desktop, is there anyway I can keep the added pages/visuals/editing made in the workspace by team members? 

What is the best pratice for such situations like mine? 

Any advice / suggestions is appreciated. Thanks.

[pbiuseruk · Accepted solution]

If you want to allow people to make changes and then have them persist, when you do updates in Power BI Desktop. You can do Jai's suggestion or you can tell your colleagues to make spin off reports in Power BI service (click save as copy while viewing the report) and then they can make their edits there.

If you update the semantic model by republishing the file, their report pages will still be available in the way that they made them. The only thing to be cautious of is, if you delete things like measures, columns, etc.. and they're using them in their personalised reports in the service - then it may break those report visuals that are using the objects that you removed.

For version control, I sometimes use SharePoint but if you have a premium license and others do aswell, then it's better to use PBIP files like Jai mentioned, as that will be proper version control with a git like deployment approach.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @pbiuseruk @Jai-Rathinavel for your quick and informative reponses. 

Since I don't have a premium license right now, the best approach is to ask the team members to work on saved copy of the original data model.

One more question: so any spin off copies is automatically connected with the original or updated data model? If I update the data model and republish it, it will be automatically accessbile by the saved copies?      

[Jai-Rathinavel]

@Anonymous , as long as your not renaming your model and publishing all the dependent reports would get updated with the latest logics.

[pbiuseruk]

Hi,

Yes, the spin off copies will be linked to your main report and when you publish updates, they'll be updated aswell.

[Jai-Rathinavel]

Hi @Anonymous ,

1. One approach would be always making changes in Power BI service not in desktop, you can also now edit your data model in service but transform data option is not supported

2. As a best practice you can start adapting to PBIP Version control, Microsoft has launched a PBIP (Power BI project file) solution to enable collaborative development done at a report and model level. You would need a Azure Devops Repository and GitHub to get started. Go through the below link and video to get started with PBIP Format

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-overview

PBIP-Youtube Video 

Did I answer your question ? If yes, please mark my post as a solution.

Thanks,

Jai 🙂