As data democracy spreads, tools become easier to use, and more pedestrian users appear, it occurred to me that while MS tries hard to streamline report queries there are likely many reports out there loaded with queries that retrieve data that isn't actually used, wasting bandwith and storage, complicating troubleshooting and hand offs to others. I am shamefully a prime example of this. And I do it because it's easy. I consume data from sources outside my department and these are structured appropriately in many fact and dimension tables. But I don't always know when I begin which tables have the data I need, so I bring them all in and begin an act of discovery. Eventually I find what I need, but I don't see the an impact on my report (ie. the refresh happens on a schedule and no one is watching/waiting) and the report behavior is responsive, so I may never clean it up and remove the unused queries. Further, it's a bit scary to do so. What if I remove something I actually did need and break it? In theory I would love to clean this sucker up because it's a bit of a mess to look at, but it's working. Also, the boss wants another one and the fastest way is to copy this one and rename it since the data is already there. Now I'm propagating it. Give me a tool that lets me identify unsed queries and flag them so I can disable loading or remove them. This should look at both relationships and report visuals. Communitity, in the mean time I will try to be a better example.
... View more