Forum Discussion
tool choice to create SSAS tabular cube - Power BI Desktop vs Visual Studio
bcdobbs I understand that all of those tools work on tabular models. I was just wondering what the pros / cons for each of them are (for creating / maintaining a tabular model).
parry2k From the link that you gave, it seems that Power BI Premium (not Power BI shared capacity) includes all of the functionality of AAS (and more). So, from a feature perspective, it would make sense to use Power BI Desktop (or probably Tabular Editor, since it's more feature-rich) for the cube creation if you use Power BI Premium. Conversely, if you just have shared capacity, then it would make sense to use AAS, SSAS, or Tabular Editor.
By the way, as an alternative to Visual Studio or Tabular Editor for exposing files to put under source control (e.g., the .bim file), you could use Power BI Sidetools or just change the extension on the .pbix / .pbit file to .zip (which exposes all of the underyling files).
- bcdobbs
Community Champion
Thanks Anonymous . I never got on well with the intermediate steps to make git work which is probably why I have a preference for tabular editor! (My inherent laziness!)
In terms of shared capacity vs premium I'm not sure there is any difference in terms of what is supported by the tabular model aspect of it. I've never used it but I'm fairly sure shared capacity still exposes the xlma end point at which point what is supported by the tabular model will be the same. If you connect to your shared capacity xlma end point with ssms it should tell you what the max compatibility level it support is which we can then confirm from.
The only other thing that popped into my head was what compatibility level visual studio now supports for tabular models. Haven't used latest version but 2019 community didn't support 1500+ range last time I looked which was another driver for tabular editor.
