No semanticmodel folder when saving report as pbip with Semantic Model in Fabric

[THuss]

I am currently trying to integrate a report and semantic model in a terraform solution. Following the documentation at terraform-provider-fabric/examples/resources/fabric_semantic_model/resource.tf at main · microsoft/t... we need the model.bim and definition.pbism to deploy the semantic model.

I am not really a Power BI expert but what I found out is that you can usually save your report (including the model) as pbip and it will create a semanticmodel subfolder including the model.bim. However, when I connect from Power BI Desktop to my Semantic Model in Fabric and save as pbip, this subfolder does not get created at all.

The only other way to get this seems to be a paid subscription for Tabular Editor 3, which is currently out of the question.

Is this the intended design or am I experiencing a bug? Is there any other way I am unaware of (really would like to avoid having to do it programmatically).

And bonus question: does anyone know if the terraform provider has an undocumented way of using the new TMDL structure instead of TMSL?

Thanks all!

[v-huijiey-msft]

Hi @THuss ,

Thanks for the reply from MFelix , his answer is good.

For your Terraform related questions, I suggest you ask in the Terraform forums where more professionals can help.

Latest Terraform topics - HashiCorp Discuss

If you have any other questions please feel free to contact me.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

[THuss]

Thank you Miguel. So in these cases, what possibilites do I have to get the .bim and .pbism files? Only Tabular Editor 3 and maybe some Rest API or powershell commands? I cannot imagine that there is no userfriendly way to integrate a report linked to a service into the terraform scripts 😮

[MFelix · Accepted solution]

Hi @THuss ,

If you need to have the BIM file you need to go to tabular Editor either version 2 or 3, to save the BIM file there is no need for the paid versions, will work you just need to connect to the semantic model and save as bim file.

Concerning the userfriendly way about terraform scripts I have to be honest that I do not have that answer.

[THuss]

Hi Miguel, I got it to work with the TE3 free trial. Will try again later with TE2, though I was under the impression that it's not possible there for models connected to Fabric. Will check again.

[THuss]

Ok it does indeed also work with TE2 (save .pbix as .pbip, open the .pbip and then through external tools open in TE2, save model as model.bim). Should be reasonable enough as TE2 is free for everyone. Thanks again for your help!

[MFelix]

Hi @THuss ,

If you have connection trough XMLA endpoint to the service there is no need even to do the PBIX save.

[THuss]

Might have been a local issue of some sorts then, couldn't get it to open otherwise. It's literally the first time I'm trying this just because I'm stuck with that Terraform project, so might be a me issue 😄

[MFelix]

Hi @THuss ,

The folder for semantic model is only created when you are working a loca model, if you have your model connected to the Service (fabric or Power BI) that folder won't appear since the connection to your data is just a link that is stored on the definitions of the report since you cannot edit the report locally.