How to reuse data connections/relationships with Power BI desktop?

[dancarr22]

Hello,

We have several different users going against similar datasets for their Power BI report(s).  Each time -- the user has to connect to SQL Server, maybe connect to a given Web Site, etc.  Then, when someone else creates a new report they replicate those steps.  Any way to save a group of data conections -- basically the data relationships tab?  Then, users could always point to that data 'middle tier'?

This also impacts when we push our reports to the cloud/Power BI service -- each time it creates a separate dataset for each report -- even if is the same as several other reports we already pushed.

BTW, LOVE Powere BI!  Great work on this so far -- looking forward to a tool to convert Tableau workbooks to Power BI.

Thanks,

Dan

[v-yulgu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @dancarr22,

Since Power BI desktop April release, it supports the ability to connect to datasets in the Power BI service. This feature allows us to create new reports off existing datasets we have already published to the cloud. Based on this feature, you can collaborate and reduce duplicate efforts across your team.

However, the ability to share the relationship together with source data is not supported right now.

Someone has submitted this feature request at this link, you can click to vote it up:

Ability to share datasets or connection to other users

Best regards,
Yuliana Gu

[dancarr22]

Thanks Yuliana!