Bug: Rebinding report in OneDrive does not update lineage in PowerBI Service

[darrenfishell]

I have a report stored in OneDrive with a live connection to a golden dataset. I've published this same report to multiple workspaces from the OneDrive location, so all reports are synced with the same version. 

But when I switched the data source to a model in a different workspace, the change did not update within the lineage view or lineage metadata in the PowerBI service. That change didn't update despite the report successfully being rebound to the new source, which I confirmed by downloading the PBIX from the PowerBI service and finding that it had a live connection to the new data source. 

While the report was apparently actually connected to the new data source, the lineage link still prevented me from moving or deleting the prior data source, as the PowerBI service still reflected that out-of-date relationship. Even though the old data source no longer had a live connection to the report, deleting the old data source also deletes the child report. 

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @darrenfishell 

May I know how you switched that data source to another dataset? Did you make this change in Power BI Desktop in the pbix file with the same name? After changing, how you update the reports in different workspaces of Power BI service?

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Caiyun

[darrenfishell]

Thank you @v-cazheng-msft! 

The report is synced to a PBIX in SharePoint. In PowerBI Desktop, I opened the local version of the file (synced to my machine with OneDrive) and then used the [Transform Data -> Data source settings] menu to switch the live connection from Model 1 to Model 2, which was published in a different workspace. 

I then re-saved the SharePoint file, closed PowerBI Desktop and waited a few minutes for that to sync with the PowerBI service. To confirm this sync took place, I included a new page to the report called "Sync Test" and hid that from view. 

I then waited a few minutes and opened the web editor view to confirm that the "Sync Test" tab appeared in the report, to confirm the update from SharePoint to the PowerBI Service. 

Having confirmed that update from SharePoint, I then opened the lineage view to find a linkage still to Model 1. Confused, I then downloaded this PBIX file from the PowerBI Service and opened it in Desktop.

The PBIX I downloaded correctly had a connection to Model 2, directly contradicting the lineage view in the PowerBI Service. 
I then attempted to delete Model 1 and was given a cross-workspace impact warning that all of the related reports would be deleted, despite that report not actually being connected to Model 1 any longer. 

----
Thank you very much for the help. I'm currently working with our tenant admins to get REST API access as well and will explore whether the rebind API functions would help me in switching the live connection of reports. 
If not, this bug adds a challenge to using this SharePoint sync feature to avoid duplication of reports distributed across workspaces for different departments, with departmental filtering handled in RLS rules. 

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @darrenfishell 

Thanks for your reply. I've test the Rebind REST API, the results are as follows.

Lineage after calling this REST API:

It does can be used to update the dataset bound to the report, including update Lineage.

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Caiyun

[darrenfishell]

Thank you! I'm still wondering: is it intentional that this lineage does not update automatically when the PBIX file is rebound and resaved in OneDrive? 

It appeared to me that the report actually was referring to the new source using that method and that the lineage view was actually wrong in that case. I believe that's still a bug, but it's great to know the Rebind API can resolve this.