Forum Discussion
Report Builder data model
No, Power BI Report Builder is fundamentally different from Power BI Desktop and does not allow you to create a data model with relationships and DAX measures in the same way.
Report Builder is a specialized tool for creating pixel-perfect paginated reports (like invoices or detailed operational reports) by querying an existing data source. Power BI Desktop, on the other hand, is designed for creating interactive reports built on a powerful, in-memory semantic model.
The best practice is to use both tools together for their specific strengths:
Model in Power BI Desktop: Use Power BI Desktop to connect to your raw data sources, perform all necessary transformations in Power Query, and build a robust semantic model with relationships and DAX measures.
Publish to the Service: Publish this PBIX file to a Power BI workspace. This makes your semantic model available as a reliable, centralized data source.
Report in Report Builder: Open Power BI Report Builder and choose Power BI Semantic Model as your data source. Connect to the model you just published. You can then write DAX queries against this model to pull the precise, pre-modeled data you need to create your paginated report.
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Definitely Modeling is not possible within RDL
A quick summary regarding Report Builder:
Data Modeling: Report Builder doesn’t support full Power BI‑style data models with relationships — it relies on query‑based datasets.
Data Import: You can connect to many sources, manually enter data, or use Power Query (Preview) to bring in data.
Query Transformation: You can shape and filter data via Query Designer, dataset filters/parameters, and Power Query transformations.