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jujiro
Regular Visitor

Changing underlying source column names for visuals

I have several reports which use one single model hosted on the PBI portal.  We made a change in the model recently.  As a result some columns were renamed in the model.  Of course, this broke many of the visuals on the report.  

My question is, is there a less painful way to replace the underlying source column in these reports without using PBI Desktop?

 

I am going along the following path, but have not made much headway. 

I extracted the Layout (json metadata for visuals) from the PBIX file (the renaming the pbix to .zip file and unzipping method.)  I see the column names in there, which I could try to replace.  However, without understanding the metadata layout, I am reluctant to move froward with this idea.  For example, the query node for one of the visuals in the layout json looks like as shown below.  I recognize only some parts of it.

 

 

 

{
   "Commands":[
      {
         "SemanticQueryDataShapeCommand":{
            "Query":{
               "Version":2,
               "From":[
                  {
                     "Name":"c",
                     "Entity":"Calculated Table",
                     "Type":0
                  }
               ],
               "Select":[
                  {
                     "Column":{
                        "Expression":{
                           "SourceRef":{
                              "Source":"c"
                           }
                        },
                        "Property":"Col2"
                     },
                     "Name":"Calculated Table.Col2"
                  }
               ]
            },
            "Binding":{
               "Primary":{
                  "Groupings":[
                     {
                        "Projections":[
                           0
                        ],
                        "Subtotal":1
                     }
                  ]
               },
               "DataReduction":{
                  "DataVolume":3,
                  "Primary":{
                     "Window":{
                        "Count":500
                     }
                  }
               },
               "Version":1
            }
         }
      }
   ]
}

 

 

 

1 REPLY 1
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @jujiro ,

Sorry that I can't find the proper solution to update the field name without using Power BI Desktop...

If it is possible to work in Power BI Desktop, you refer the content in the following link to do it. 

Which is the best way to rename columns in the dataset?

Since the column names in the model have been changed, these column names may be used in measures, calculated columns or calculation tables, so you have to find them first and correct them one by one.  

How to find where a column is used?

Searching a Field or Table in Power BI Visualization

Best Regards

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