Power BI CI/CD Made Simple – A Beginner’s Guide with Azure DevOps (Part 1)

[Arul]

One of the biggest headaches for Power BI developers has always been version control keeping track of changes to reports and semantic models.

For years, the most common workaround was to save .pbix files on OneDrive or SharePoint. While those tools do store file versions, they can’t match the power of a proper code repository when it comes to:

• True version control with history tracking and rollbacks

• Seamless deployments to different environments

• Collaborative development where multiple people work on the same asset without conflicts. That’s why Power BI’s integration with Azure DevOps and GitHub is such a game changer.

With Git integration, you get:

• Version Control: Keep every change tracked, compare versions, and roll back if needed.

• Continuous Integration (CI): Collaborate smoothly with your team, even on shared reports or datasets.
  

• Continuous Deployment (CD): Automate releases to UAT or production without manual uploads.

• Code Checks: Run automated best-practice validations before your work ever reaches production.

Focusing on Azure DevOps Git Integration:

Power BI supports Git integration with two major code repository platforms: Azure DevOps and GitHub.
In this post, we’ll focus on Azure DevOps because it offers a smooth experience for teams already using Microsoft’s ecosystem.

At a high level, Git integration means linking your Power BI workspace to a specific branch or folder in an Azure DevOps Git repository. Once connected, the reports and semantic models you build in Power BI Desktop are synchronized into a central Git repository. This not only keeps everything in one place but also opens the door to version control, code reviews, and automated deployments.

Prerequisite: Visual Studio Code Setup

Before you integrate Azure DevOps with a Power BI workspace, you will need Visual Studio Code installed and ready.

Here’s the high-level setup process:

1. Download and Install VS Code: Get Visual Studio Code

2. Add the Azure DevOps Extension in VS Code so you can interact with your repository directly.

3. Sign In to VS Code using the same account you use for Power BI.

Once your local Git repository is connected to Azure DevOps, Visual Studio Code takes care of publishing your project. With just a few clicks (or Git commands), your Power BI project files are pushed to Azure DevOps, where you can view them in your repository alongside commit history, branches, and pull requests.

This means your entire team can now work from the same single source of truth, making collaboration seamless and reducing the risk of version conflicts.

I’ll walk you through this entire process from connecting your local repo to Azure DevOps, to publishing your project, to enabling automated deployments in the next part of this series.

[Shubham_rai955]

@Arul , Thank you for this, this helped me see how Azure DevOps and Power BI work together.
Now I get how version control can make teamwork smoother.

[syazwansharani]

Look forward to the next one!

[PhilipRoyLouis]

Thank you Arul for this Intresting blog looking forward for the next.

[Abhilash_P]

Hi @Arul,
Looking forward for next one 

[damlapeker]

Thanks for sharing @Arul . I’ve been using CI/CD with DevOps already, but I still found this helpful and well explained.