How to decompress DataModel from PBIX file.

[michal089]

Hi,

Recently I have played around with .pbix files. I've tried to unzip the file and open DataModel. The main obstacle is that I can only read "This backup was created using XPress9 compression." . Have anyone tried to decompress the file ? What tools do I need to do so?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Michal

[ferryv]

For those that are still looking for an alternative option without having to decompress files: You can save your pbix file as pbip now (might not have been available when the question was raised), which will extract all files in a readable format (json, xml, etc).

You can pretty much open all files in a text editor and derive the info from there, like the relationships, DAX queries, power queries, etc.

It can also help with version controlling the reports in tools like Github as you can track changes.

[Anonymous]

Export the .PBIX to .PBIT from within Power BI Desktop, then rename the .PBIT to zip, extract, and the DataModelSchema is readable

[MichaelLowden]

SWEET!!! I've since moved on and am getting this through either SQL Server Management Studio or through ALMToolkit. But this is great too. I wonder if I can automate PBIX->PBIT->DataModelSchema.json with PowerShell too. Much appreciated!

[MichaelLowden]

So far, the best approach I've found is to manually use the tool "ALM Toolkit". Open your desktop file in PBI Desktop, and then open ALM Toolkit. You can choose the desktop file from here as "source", and the online version as "target". Compare differences just to run the app. Then, even if everything is identical, you can export to XLSX the full definition of the PBIX. Here you'll find JSON formatted cells with things like your formulas and column names and the works. This will become a weekly effort for me to re-run any recently modified PBIX dataset sources, and generate new XLSX files that are then my source files for another process to consolidate and report out my data dictionary. Being all of this is running via APIs to PowerBI Desktop/Online I have to also imagine I could write something directly to the online service to pull the same JSON data dictionary. However, I haven't found the correct API yet.

[captnchris]

The .pbix is a PkZip format that can be unzipped with pkzip, winrar, 7z...

Open a .pbix with text editor a you'll see it starts with a "PK<etx><eot>..."

The inner files are compressed in different format ... that I am also looking on how to ... 😊

[Anonymous]

I was just about to do this but didn't want to bother if it was a dead end.

Did you succeed?

[v-cherch-msft]

Hi @michal089

It seems there is no better tool to decompress the file. Below are some articles about the file. You may connect the model from Excel and SSMS: Connect to Power BI Desktop Model from Excel and SSMS.

http://www.sqlgene.com/2018/01/30/power-bi-desktop-files-are-smaller-now/

https://www.fourmoo.com/2017/05/02/what-makes-up-a-power-bi-desktop-pbix-file/

Regards,

Cherie

[AlexanderK79]

7-zip can do it from the command-line

add the directory where the 7z.exe lives to your PATH environment variable

change to the directory where you extracted the .pbix file

issue the command:

7z x DataMashup -o".\DataMashupDir\" -aoa

[Anonymous]

I find that 7z won't extract it for me. 

Canot open the file as archive, unfortunately.