Direct queries are processing sequentially

[steve-harvey]

Hi,

I am developing a model with a very large dataset using Direct Query.  The report contains many measures and they seem to be processing sequentially rather than in parallel.  To process the report in a reasonable time, it seems that I will have to precalculate all the measures in the databased and then just use one measure to return them all.

Currently, 1 measure is around 1 second, 50 measures in 50 seconds.  If PBI could process in parallel, then I would hope that it would process in less than 5 seconds.

a) Are there any plans for PBI to process direct queries in parallel?

b) Any other solutions than precalculating the measures in the database?

Cheers, Steve

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @steve-harvey, 

1. There is a option in Power BI desktop to enable parallel executing and loading of tables. 

2.  I'm afraid not. You can consider writing T-SQL query to return required fields. 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[steve-harvey]

Hi Qiuyun Yu,

Thanks for your reply.

I was actually asking about retrieving data from PBI via Direct Query, rather than loading data into PBI.

Unfortunately, the MS PBI Dev team have confirmed that this feature doesn't actually exist even though they added it to the interface.  They have gone on to say that:

The Microsoft dev team was completely aware of this situation and said it was one area they might investigate more in the future, but it's not currently on their short term roadmap.

So it looks like the use case for Direct Query is quite limited until they resolve this, which is not in the "short term".

A bit disingenuous to add parallel configuration options, but not put anything under the hood!