Best practices for multiple developers working on the same Power BI report, publishing with gateway

[rookieda]

Hi Community,

We are a team of two developers working on the same Power BI report.

• My teammate built the initial version and currently handles publishing to the Power BI Service.

• I’m now making updates and changes, but every time I finish, I have to send the updated PBIX file to him so he can publish it.

• This process is inefficient and slows down our workflow.

• There’s also a data gateway already configured for scheduled refresh.

My questions are:

1. Can I publish the report myself without losing the existing scheduled refresh and gateway configuration?

2. What are the best practices for multiple developers working on the same PBIX file and publishing, especially when:

   • A gateway is involved for scheduled refresh.

   • We are considering setting up deployment pipelines in the future. But we are skeptical if it would work. How can it be done?

Any suggestions or recommended approaches would be greatly appreciated!

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @rookieda 

As we haven’t heard back from you, we wanted to kindly follow up to check if the suggestions  provided by the community members for the issue worked. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Thanks and regards

[v-tejrama]

Hi  @rookieda ,

I wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to review the information shared. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, feel free to reach out.

Thank you.

[ibarrau]

Hi. In my opinion, the best approach is using Power BI projects PBIP with repos. Considering you are just asking about PBIX, I have written what I think is best in the following article: https://blog.ladataweb.com.ar/post/716223048431386624/git-versionando-powerbi-trabajando-en-equipo

You can translate it to english. It shows how to work with repo + pbix + one person editing at one time locking file.

The article also shows an architecture to automate an auto publish to service scheduled or manually.

I hope that helps,

[v-tejrama]

Hi  @rookieda 

Thank you @rohit1991    for the response provided! 

Has your issue been resolved? If the response provided by the community member addressed your query, could you please confirm? It helps us ensure that the solutions provided are effective and beneficial for everyone.

Thank you for your understanding!

[rohit1991]

Hi @rookieda 

1) Can you publish without breaking gateway/refresh:
Yes, Publish to the same workspace and choose Replace the existing dataset (same name). The gateway mapping and refresh schedule stay. If prompted, click Take over and re-enter credentials. Only reconfigure the gateway if you added/renamed data sources.

2) Best practice for two developers (with gateway):

• Give both devs Contributor in the workspace and add both as Users on the gateway data sources.

• Split model and report: publish the semantic model once; build reports as thin reports (live connection). Report changes don’t touch refresh/gateway.

• Prefer a service principal (or shared admin account) as dataset owner for scheduled refresh.

• Use Deployment Pipelines (Dev >> Test >> Prod): assign workspaces, set rules to swap parameters/gateway per stage, then Promote forward.

• Keep files in SharePoint/OneDrive or Git (PBIP) for versioning; agree on “one person edits at a time”.

• When schema or data sources change, update gateway data sources/mappings first, then publish.