Improve Report Deployment on Power BI Report Server

[Anonymous]

When deploying or migrating reports to a new Power BI Report Server, the server name in the pbix file does not get updated.   As a result, after deploying reports, each report must be opened manually in Power BI Desktop and the server name manually edited.   Otherwise, when a user selects 'Edit in Power BI Desktop' the report will still be point to the old server. 

Currently, every time we migrate to from Dev to Test to Stage to Prod we must tediously update the server names in each report.   And then we must do this again when we deliver to customer sites.    

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

The reports deployed to report server will use the same connection information for data source as in desktop. In your scenario, when you move the report from Dev to Test, please open the report in desktop within the Test environment and change data source points to the data source within Test environment, then publish the report to Test report server. 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu 

[Anonymous]

Qiuyun,

We can change the connection information on the report server but that does not change it in the .pbix file.  Even after changing the connection on the report server when we select "Edit in Power BI Desktop" the report that is opened is still pointing to the server from Dev.

What you suggest is true, "open the report in desktop within the Test environment and change data source points to the data source within Test environment, then publish the report to Test report server. "  However, this is an manual process, we have 25 semantic models and over 60 reports, doing this on each report is not a workable solution.   We need a way to automate the delivery of the reports and the updating of the connection information.    In addition, we are an ISV and we want to deliver our reports to 100s of client's and currently we need to update the connection information manaully for each customer.  Potentially,  100x60 = 6000 manually updates. 

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

Please try the Set-RsRestItemDataSource method listed here: https://github.com/Microsoft/ReportingServicesTools

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu