Backwards Deployments

[bw26]

We currently have Power BI reports in our production environment that have been deployed through two methods: direct loading and our standard deployment pipeline. Moving forward, we aim to enforce the use of our standard deployment pipeline and eliminate direct loading. We have confirmed that all necessary connection strings (gateway and cloud) are correctly configured for pipeline deployments.

My primary concern is whether transitioning a report currently in production (originally direct loaded) to deployment via the standard pipeline will result in a new report ID. Losing the existing report ID would mean losing historical usage statistics, which is undesirable.

To mitigate this potential loss, I am considering a reverse deployment strategy: deploying the production report to our test environment, then to our development environment. Subsequently, I would deploy the report from the development environment back to production using the standard pipeline.

My question is: if I follow this reverse deployment process for a report that was initially direct loaded, and then deploy it to production via the standard pipeline, will the report retain its original report ID, thus preserving the associated usage statistics?

[pallavi_r · Accepted solution]

Hi @bw26 ,

As far as I know the backward deployment using 'Deploy to previous stage' option does not change the report id of production. It creates new reports for lower environments test and dev, so there the report id gets altered, but production workspace report ids stay unaltered. 

As long as we do not delete a report manually or thru scripts, we should be good. Deployment pipeline always  identifies existing content in the target stage and overwrites only its content. The item's ID, URL, and permissions remain unchanged.

Thanks,

Pallavi

[Akash_Varuna · Accepted solution]

@bw26 I don’t think the report ID will be retained when re-deploying a directly loaded report via the pipeline, as each deployment generates a new ID. To preserve the original ID, overwrite the existing production report by publishing the pipeline-deployed version with the same name and workspace.

[v-hashadapu · Accepted solution]

Hi @bw26 , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Please let us know if your issue is solved. If it is, consider marking the answers that helped 'Accept as Solution', so others with similar queries can find them easily. If not, please share the details.
Thank you.

[rohit1991]

Hi @bw26

This issue is related to the February 2025 Power BI update and the WebView2 runtime. Since Power BI depends on WebView2 for visuals, errors can occur if the runtime is outdated, missing, or corrupted. Make sure the latest WebView2 runtime is installed on all machines, as it isn’t always updated automatically with Power BI. If the problem continues, try rolling back to a stable earlier version until Microsoft releases a fix. It’s also worth checking the official forums and known issues list, as many users are facing the same problem.

[Akash_Varuna · Accepted solution]

@bw26 I don’t think the report ID will be retained when re-deploying a directly loaded report via the pipeline, as each deployment generates a new ID. To preserve the original ID, overwrite the existing production report by publishing the pipeline-deployed version with the same name and workspace.

[pallavi_r · Accepted solution]

Hi @bw26 ,

As far as I know the backward deployment using 'Deploy to previous stage' option does not change the report id of production. It creates new reports for lower environments test and dev, so there the report id gets altered, but production workspace report ids stay unaltered. 

As long as we do not delete a report manually or thru scripts, we should be good. Deployment pipeline always  identifies existing content in the target stage and overwrites only its content. The item's ID, URL, and permissions remain unchanged.

Thanks,

Pallavi