Forum Discussion
sharepoint view
gbritton - You don't. When Power BI looks at a SharePoint list, it is not looking at a particular view, it is looking at the raw list and seeing all of its various fields, even ones that are typically completely hidden in SharePoint. It is more like when you look at list from a PowerShell perspective. Basically, the way it is accessed bypasses a lot of the "SharePointiness" that goes on (read, the platform saving you from yourself). Think of it as the regedit for SharePoint lists only without the edit and no registry. In any event, to "recreate" a particular view, start with everything and then remove the columns you do not want.
@smoupre wrote:gbritton - You don't. When Power BI looks at a SharePoint list, it is not looking at a particular view, it is looking at the raw list and seeing all of its various fields, even ones that are typically completely hidden in SharePoint. It is more like when you look at list from a PowerShell perspective. Basically, the way it is accessed bypasses a lot of the "SharePointiness" that goes on (read, the platform saving you from yourself). Think of it as the regedit for SharePoint lists only without the edit and no registry. In any event, to "recreate" a particular view, start with everything and then remove the columns you do not want.
I was afraid of that! It's actually quite unacceptable. There are some fields that are in constant flux in one list I access -- breaking any work that accesses that (raw) list. However there are views defined over fields that the business has agreed to leave as is. Those views should always work, no matter what happens to unrelated fields.
gbritton - Can you provide a specific example that explains the use case and why you can't just essentially recreate the views in your queries by selecting the same fields that those views use?
Here is what I don't understand. You have a view defined over certain fields, let's call them FieldA, FieldB, FieldC. In your query, to to the SharePoint list and select FieldA, FieldB and FieldC and then select "Remove Other Columns". Now you have a query that only has the same fields as the view.
Please explain what I am missing.
That check box is new to me. I'll try it.
However"
What about computed columns in a list view or columns coming from other sources etc or filtered view?
Sounds like this has to be redone in PBI. then somehow kept in sync with the list view. Nasty!
gbritton - Calculated columns should come through as whatever value they have at the time of grabbing the list. I'm going to check this one so stay tuned.
Columns coming from other data sources (I assume Lookup columns here) often do not need anything special done. At worst, you have to click the little arrow icons in the column heading to expand the column to the particular value you are looking for.
Filters most definitely have to be recreated during the query or you pull in all the data and filter it in the report (Page filter, Report filter, etc.) In the query, you click the little down arrow in the column heading and choose the values you want to include and uncheck the ones that you do not.