Forum Discussion
Multiple users working on same pbix file
Hi Franklin,
We haven't found a good alternative way where I work - we do what you're doing.
One small piece of advice is that you could be saving the file as a PBIT instead of PBIX as if you're bringing a lot of data into the model your different versions will end up taking up a lot of space.
PBIT does mean that the model will need to load the data every time you open, so it's a bit of a trade-off.
Alex
While this is an older message I don't think the question has been adequately addressed and showed up in a top search for me.
The short answer I would give is don't try to share the same PBIX file. It will only result in conflicts with updates.
If you have multiple people working off the same model for reporting separate the reporting from the model. Use one file to maintain the model and publish it to a workspace. Then each report writer can use the model that is in the workspace as a data source to write reports in their own PBIX file. As the model is getting changed, as long as it is published over the existing model the reports will inherit the changes.
You will still have an issue if multiple models are trying to model at the same time but this approach at least allows a team to have one modeler to many report writers. You could also run into issues with many report writers if all of them need to add tabs to the same report -- you would still have potential conflicts.
(Note -- I don't recall if this approach was available when the original posters responded.)
Why can't it be like cloud Excel where multiple users can work on the same thing at the same time. Reasons like 'because it just can't' aren't reasons, they're bad planning.