Table Relationships are changing to limited relationships

[Aidenifyable]

I am encountering an issue when I am creating a report that is connected to a semantic model. The schema is very simple with only having two dimension tables connected to my fact table with 1:* relationship as seen below:

Now when I publish the data model to the service and then create another power bi report that connects to the above semantic model, the relationships change from being 1:* to a limited relationship?

To sum up my problem, when connecting to my semantic model to create a report, the relationships in the data model rather than stay the same end up changing to limited relationships and I do not understand why this change is occuring?

Thank you for your help!

[Anonymous]

Hi, @Aidenifyable 

If your model contains both DirectQuery and Import data sources, Power BI might automatically set the relationship to restricted. This is because DirectQuery sources can impose restrictions on how relationships can be handled. You can refer to the following link:

Composite model guidance in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

There might be specific limitations or settings in the Power BI service that affect how relationships are handled. Reviewing the Power BI documentation on relationship and composite models may provide additional insights.

One-to-one relationship guidance - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

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Best Regards

Yongkang Hua

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[Aidenifyable · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your help, I was able to find an explanation for the limited relationships on another forum but I will post the answer here for reference:

My understanding is that when Power BI Desktop connects to a remote Semantic Model (e.g., in a "Thin Report" configuration like you're working on here), it doesn't have the ability to verify the cardinality of the relationships between the tables, but that's not its job either. Relationship cardinality is handled at the Semantic Model level, so the Report doesn't care about the strength or weakness of those relationships. All the Report cares about is generating and sending DAX queries to the Semantic Model, and receiving the data necessary to populate its visuals in response.

Hopefully this can clear up the questions for others. Basically it is something that does occur in reports connected to Semantic models and will not effect performance of the report.

[Aidenifyable]

Thank you for your response.

I had reviewed this particular documentations and though I understand what the different types of relationships there are, I am trying to figure out why my report that is connected to my semantic model changes relationships. Historically this does not happen in my expereince. The report should mirror what my semantic model looks like in model view yet it changes to limited relationships? 

What I hope you can help me with is diagnose how this could be occuring and if others have seen this issue.

Thank you for any help you can provide!

[Wilson_]

Hey Aidenifyable,

Hard to tell from the detail you've shared so far but maybe this Microsoft documentation provides some clarity!

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