Can I save pbit instead of pbix in the new Git integration (preview)?

[pborah]

We already have a main PowerBI git repository in Azure devops where we save a pbit of each report we make to manage file size and strip data out of the files. But we do this manually every time. While I'm happy to see direct git integration under workspace settings in the service, I was wondering if it's possible to replicate what we've been doing manually, i.e. have pbit pushed to git instead of pbix? 

Because if you think about it, it's not really that efficient to be pushing 500-600MB+ pbix files where bulk of the size comes from the data embedded with it to a code repository of all places. Especially when you have 100+ reports in your organization.

[SaiTejaTalasila · Accepted solution]

Hi @davidding ,

Understand the difference and pbip is the most efficient one.

Pbix (Power BI Report):

Contains: Full report with data.

Git Suitability: Less ideal due to size and data inclusion.

Pbit (Power BI Template):

Contains: Report structure without data.

Git Suitability: Better than .pbix due to smaller size and no data.

Pbip (Power BI Project):

Contains: Modular project files, allowing for separate management of components.

Git Suitability: Best option for version control, supporting granular changes and more efficient collaboration.

Thanks,

Sai Teja 

[davidding]

when you save the report as pbip file, it should automatically created the gitignore file. Inside the file there should be a reference to "**/.pbi/cache.abf". This is where the data is stored, so when you push this into the repo it will not include the actual data.

[AlexisOlson]

The Git integration doesn't use pbix or pbit. It uses the pbip project format.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-azdo