How to open report in desktop

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've built a number of reports in Power BI service. I have editing rights, and can also access the dataset in Power BI desktop, and publish new reports from there. However, I can't open the existing reports in my workspace in Power BI desktop. How do I do this? I don't want to start over and build all my reports in desktop, but just edit the ones I've already set up. 

[tex628]

Hi @Anonymous,

Keep in mind that if you download a report as a .pbix and then republish it you will get a new seperate dataset. 

If you want to make changes to the existing dataset I would advice you speak with the individual who made the original dataset and have him/her give you access to the original .pbix file. 

If you perform the neccesary changes there and further update the original dataset the changes should also affect all the reports in service that is using that dataset as a source.

Br,
J 

[PhilD]

So is it true that one cannot simply download the pbix file, open in PowerBI Desktop, then publish back to the service? I am getting the impression that this function (essentially "edit report in PowerBI Desktop") is not possible, is that correct?

We are switching from another analytics platform so not as familiar with PowerBI (but am with PowerApps and Flow, etc.)

[tex628]

In the basic scenario that you have one report and one dataset, you can simply download the pbix, make your changes and then publish it back. As long as the name of the file is the same as the dataset this will overwrite the original dataset and report. 

If it does not have the same name you will instead end up with two datasets and two reports.

Things start to get a little more complicated if you have several reports, dependant on a single dataset. This means that when you overwrite the dataset you will only overwrite the original report, not the others. The others will still have access to the changes you made to the dataset, but will not be affected by any visual changes you made to the report before publish. 

Hope this cleared it up! 🙂

Br, 
Johannes

[selimovd · Accepted solution]

Hey @Anonymous ,

you can go to the report and download the actual Power BI file:

If you need any help please let me know.

If I answered your question I would be happy if you could mark my post as a solution ✔️ and give it a thumbs up 👍

Best regards

Denis

Blog: WhatTheFact.bi