PowerBI Semantic Dataset Issue (Datatype change once is refreshed)

[devGV_88]

Hi there,

Hopefully you can help me.

I have a semantic model published with many tables and relationship, but the issue is just with one column in a table.

The data source is an External Table in Synapse and the column with the problem type is "Bit, null", that mean "True or False". I have many column as Bit.

While I am working in PowerBI Desktop, everything is ok. I can refresh the data and nothing change.

When I publish the report/datamodel to PowerBI Service in my workspace, also work in that time. The problem is when I refresh my dataset in PowerBI Service.

What happend?

Once the data is refreshed from PowerBi Service, this specific column change to "0 or 1" instead of "True or False" that break my reporte, because I am using this column in many measures.

Any idea? Has someone had this issue?

[devGV_88]

Really weird, because I have more than one column as Boolean but only this column change to 0/1.

I could understand if all of them have the same behavior.

Thanks for your response @Anonymous, I will follow your recomendation.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @devGV_88 ,

This behavior is related to how Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service handle datatype conversions differently. In Power BI Desktop, boolean values (TRUE/FALSE) in a column with an ANY data type are retained as strings. However, when refreshed in the Power BI Service, the underlying engine converts these boolean values to numeric representations (-1 or 0).
After my testing, changing the column data type to True/False or Text type before publishing the report to Power BI Service solves the problem. Below is a screenshot of my test:
In Power BI Desktop:

In Power BI Service:

Data types in Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn


Best Regards,
Dino Tao
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.