What are the common issues in Power BI development Project?

[srinudatanalyst]

Hi everyone,
I am currently preparing for interviews as a Power BI Developer. Could you share some of the common challenges or issues faced during Power BI development projects and how to address them? Any insights or examples would be greatly appreciated!

[rajendraongole1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @srinudatanalyst  - Great and all the best!! , 

sharing some of the challenges below:

Large datasets can lead to performance issues, slow report loading, and high memory usage.

Solutions:

Use Aggregations: Summarize data at a higher level to reduce the volume.
Implement Incremental Refresh: Refresh only new or updated data instead of the entire dataset.Optimize Queries: Ensure query folding is enabled to push transformations to the data source.Use DirectQuery: For real-time data needs, but balance it with performance considerations.Example: Aggregating sales data monthly instead of daily for a report showing yearly trends.

Converting a flat dataset into a star schema by separating a transactional table into sales (fact) and products, customers, and dates (dimensions).

point 2: Writing and debugging complex DAX expressions can be time-consuming and error-prone.

Point 3 :  Scheduled refreshes can fail due to data source connectivity issues, gateway problems, or large data loads.

Point 4: Ambiguous relationships or many-to-many relationships can lead to incorrect results.

Some reference links:

https://medium.com/%40souravdutta_24458/powering-up-your-power-bi-project-common-challenges-and-solu...

Common Challenges in Power BI Implementation and How Consultants Solve Them

Hope this helps.

[rit_ty7]

Hello @srinudatanalyst ,

Some common challenges in Power BI development include data modeling issues, performance optimization, and data refresh failures. Poorly designed data models can lead to slow performance and incorrect results; addressing this involves using star schema modeling, optimizing DAX queries, and reducing unnecessary columns and rows in datasets. Another challenge is ensuring data refreshes succeed, especially with large datasets or gateway configuration errors.
Regularly monitoring refresh schedules, optimizing query folding, and ensuring proper gateway setups can help. Additionally, Row-Level Security (RLS) misconfigurations often cause data visibility issues for end-users, which can be resolved by carefully defining security roles and testing them thoroughly.

I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Ritesh Kumar,
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[v-rzhou-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @srinudatanalyst ,

According to your statement, I think you want to develop report by Power BI. 

Here I will give you some suggestions.

Firstly, you need to choose what kind of Power BI you need to use , Desktop or Service.

Power BI Desktop is a free application you install on your local computer that lets you connect to, transform, and visualize your data. With Power BI Desktop, you can connect to multiple different sources of data, and combine them (often called modeling) into a data model. This data model lets you build visuals, and collections of visuals you can share as reports, with other people inside your organization. Most users who work on business intelligence projects use Power BI Desktop to create reports, and then use the Power BI service to share their reports with others.

You can also configure Row-level security (RLS) in Power BI Desktop and use it in Power BI Service to restrict data access for given users. 

Row-level security (RLS) with Power BI - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

You can also refer to this blog to learn how to optmize the Power BI Performance.

Optimization guide for Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

To configure data refresh, you may need to install gateway.

For reference: 
On-premises data gateway - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards,
Rico Zhou

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[rajendraongole1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @srinudatanalyst  - Great and all the best!! , 

sharing some of the challenges below:

Large datasets can lead to performance issues, slow report loading, and high memory usage.

Solutions:

Use Aggregations: Summarize data at a higher level to reduce the volume.
Implement Incremental Refresh: Refresh only new or updated data instead of the entire dataset.Optimize Queries: Ensure query folding is enabled to push transformations to the data source.Use DirectQuery: For real-time data needs, but balance it with performance considerations.Example: Aggregating sales data monthly instead of daily for a report showing yearly trends.

Converting a flat dataset into a star schema by separating a transactional table into sales (fact) and products, customers, and dates (dimensions).

point 2: Writing and debugging complex DAX expressions can be time-consuming and error-prone.

Point 3 :  Scheduled refreshes can fail due to data source connectivity issues, gateway problems, or large data loads.

Point 4: Ambiguous relationships or many-to-many relationships can lead to incorrect results.

Some reference links:

https://medium.com/%40souravdutta_24458/powering-up-your-power-bi-project-common-challenges-and-solu...

Common Challenges in Power BI Implementation and How Consultants Solve Them

Hope this helps.