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rloski-public
Helper I
Helper I

Report specific measures in a report with a live connection to SSAS Tabular - Good, Bad, ugly

I guess this was a "feature" that was introduced six years ago (Power BI Desktop May Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI_.  You can create measures in a report that is attached to SSAS Tabular with Live Connection.

What do people think about this?

I am less than impressed. It has been difficult to find the source of an issue.  I start in the report and find that the measure that is not working has a name like "_measure test" with an expression that includes measures like XXX and Test3.  Occasionally there is an informative measure name in the expression (MTD Sales).  But then I have to figure out if MTD Sales is in the report or it is hidden in the report.

Most of the measures I am seeing in the reports were added because the equivalent measure in the SSAS model was not working.  I would much rather figure out what is broken rather than putting together a bunch of brittle scaffolding.

My data environmentMy data environment

 

 

 

 

Ok it is a feature.  But here are my thoughts.

  • Use it to figure out how the measure might be fixed, but have it fixed in the SSAS model asap
  • Ask whether this measure is truly specific to this report.  I mean if you are going to create a similar report based on the current one, putting a measure in the report is a maintenance nightmare
  • If the measure is truly specific to the report, prefix the name of the measure with the name of the report as a kind of namespace identifier.  That way it will be harder for someone to create a measure with the same name that will break the measure.

Sorry, this has been bugging me.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
lbendlin
Super User
Super User

You wouldn't believe how often Power BI developers have no access to the SSAS cube designers.  Oftentimes these cubes have been around for many years and knowledge/desire to modify them is lacking.

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2 REPLIES 2
lbendlin
Super User
Super User

You wouldn't believe how often Power BI developers have no access to the SSAS cube designers.  Oftentimes these cubes have been around for many years and knowledge/desire to modify them is lacking.

Thank you for your comment.  I am certain that that is what motivated the use in my case.

The challenge is that the same measures are being used in multiple reports.  If I fix the measure in one of the reports it is very likely that it will be a while before someone notices that the same measure doesn't work in the other reports.  And if I fix the SSAS model by moving some of these measures from the report to the SSAS model I am likely  to break the other reports.

I guess that that this has always been an issue with self-service tools like Power BI.

Perhaps something like namespaces might help reduce the conflicts.

Thank you so much for replying and providing need perspective on this issue.

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