Import from Azure SQL DB for publication - is this necessary?

[jtheisen]

I'm using a Azure SQL DB as the source for Power BI Service, which means I have to use Power BI Desktop to create the Data Set.

With Direct Query, this is somewhat ok, but if I want the data to be imported, I need to import all the data locally to Power BI desktop even though I really only want to get the data source definition up to the service.

Do I really need to transfer all of the data every time I change the model?

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @jtheisen,

Could you please mark the proper answer as solution or share the solution if it's convenient for you? That will be a big help to the others.

Best Regards!
Dale

[v-jiascu-msft]

Hi @jtheisen,

Though it isn't an usual request, you still can do it. You can drop all the data using Keep Rows in the Query Editor. Finally, you will get a model without data. The file is quite small too.

Best Regards!

Dale