Editing Reports in Power BI but don't want changes affecting Salesforce Original Reports

[gnuoryx]

Hi All,

I connected my Salesforce reports to Power BI and made some edits to the queries in Power BI (created some new columns, deleted some culumns, split some columns data, changed some data types, etc). I want to save the changes in Power BI but I don't want the changes altering my original reports in the linked Saleforce reports (within Saleesforce) because the account is being shared and reports used by my organizrion and another group.

Is it possible to link to a Salesfroce report, make edits to the linked reports in Power BI, save the changes but yet the changes oly remain refected in the Power BI file and ot the original Salesforce reports (but I still want to retain the connection with the Salesforce reports for udates made from within Salesforce to be reflected in the Power BI dataset)?

I am new to Power BI and I will appreciate any help here. Many thanks.

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

@gnuoryx Connecting to any data source will "import or read" data from your source into Power BI. So, what you're doing is creating a new copy of that information, you don't need to worry about your source data in Salesforce being modified.

Power BI doesn't "write/export" data back to the source data. So the new columns you've added in Power BI won't show up or be added to Salesforce.

If you save your Power BI file, it will create a PBIX file of your new datamodel that you've created.

[gnuoryx · Accepted solution]

Thanks so much Eno1978; I tried it out and indeed it worked.

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

@gnuoryx Connecting to any data source will "import or read" data from your source into Power BI. So, what you're doing is creating a new copy of that information, you don't need to worry about your source data in Salesforce being modified.

Power BI doesn't "write/export" data back to the source data. So the new columns you've added in Power BI won't show up or be added to Salesforce.

If you save your Power BI file, it will create a PBIX file of your new datamodel that you've created.

[gnuoryx]

@Seth_C_Bauer; @SnoJa10 @Greg_Deckler @SqlJason

Hi All, I have a salesforce report of beneficiaries registered in salesforce database and want to run facial recognition on all registered beneficiareis to remove persons registering twice (duplicates) in different communities. Can anyone suggest a solution? Can I bring the photos into PowerBI and un a duplicate check on the faces? Just exploring what is possible. Thanks.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@gnuoryx Sounds like a cool project. Power BI natively isn't going to support this, but figuring out a way to use Azure ML to run the facial checks and pushing that back into Power BI is worth a look.

MS did a facial recognition website a while ago, and looks like they've exposed an API to assist. I haven't totally delved into it, but it looks like a good direction to pursue.

link to API

[gnuoryx]

Hi Eno1978 and All,

Eno1978, thanks for yors last assistance.

Is there a way to edit Salesforce (and other linked data) in the online version of PowerBI. I have imported my Salesforce report but can't seem to figure out how to edit that data in Salesforce like it is done in the PowerBI desktop version. For exampe, changing the data type or adding new measure or new column. Also, in both the online and desktop versions, I have a text field of names I am trying to total. I created a pie chart and disaggregated by county but it is giving a less value (2000 instead of 3,700). Can you or anyone help? Thanks.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@gnuoryx Sorry, didn't see this. If you want to address anyone on the community in a post put the "@" before their name, and it will turn yellow. This will send them a notification that someone mentioned them. To address the other part of your question, you can only change elements in your model in the Desktop, the Service is just to connect and share, not modify your model/dataset.

[gnuoryx]

@Seth_C_Bauer Hi Eno1978, can I mail you my dataset to take a quick look if you have some free time? Many thanks.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@gnuoryx Based on the feedback above, I don't see what I could do to assist.. but if you wanted to PM me a link to a One Drive location or file share, I can take a look... 

[gnuoryx]

@Seth_C_Bauer, @SnoJa10, @Greg_Deckler Hi Eno1978, I agree with you, based on responses from SnoJa10 and Smoupre, the problem is not my chart but the 2,000 rows on Salesforce reports. I would like to try out the solution mentioned by both SnoJa10 and Smoupre. However, being new to Salesforce and PowerBI it seems like I have a lot to stomach. I am also looking into connecting my Salesforce report into Excel, perform the necessary edits and data modelling then publish to PowerBI online. But I will need the report from Salesforce linked to Excel directly. I exported the report into Excel but have to clean off headers (dates, report author, etc) and this is not what I expected. Now looking into Excel connector, anything that will be less stressful and more direct. I appreciate all your comments and support. Will appreciate additional assistance. I will also update you all on my solutions as well. Thanks everyone.

[gnuoryx]

@Eno1978 Thanks. My problem actually that the I have a text field in my data set with the words "male" and "female" for sex distribution of my beneficiaries. When I create a chart (pie, histogram) it does not count the total males and femaes instead I keep getting a less number. The total dataset should be 3,150 but when ever I graph, the dtaset totals to 2,000. I can't seem to understand how to get around this. I wold be glad for any assistance in this regard. Thanks.

[Greg_Deckler]

Do you see a little yellow ! in the upper left of the visual? If so, it is truncating your data and I'm not sure there is a fix. One thing that you could do would be to create a separate table with "male" and "female" and the second column would total SUM the related entries from the original table. Then you could use this new table as the data for the pie chart, which should get around this visualization data limitation. You might be able to do the same thing with measures, I'd have to try that.

[SnoJa10 · Accepted solution]

I think it's because your Salesforce Report includes 3,150 rows of date yes? However, Power BI will only let you bring in 2,000 rows from the report so it's not a chart display issue, it's simply because all of the data isn't there...

[SnoJa10]

The Power BI Salesforce Reports connector is limited to 2,000 rows (yes, completely useless as i don't know many users who have Salesforce reports with less than 2,000 rows).

We've raised this many times to Microsoft but doesn't seem like it will get fixed. The workaround is to use the Salesforce Objects connector, but it is exteremely complex and you essentially have to re-build all salesforce relationships and tables to re-create the report.

Good luck!

[gnuoryx · Accepted solution]

Thanks so much Eno1978; I tried it out and indeed it worked.