Column renaming breaks existing reports on same data source

[jjlek]

Hi all,

I'm facing the following situation: I have originally published a report and its underlying dataset from Power BI desktop to Power Bi services. From there multiple reports were already created on that data set. After people have used the dataset for a while we've found that some of the column namings were not clear to all users. 

As a result, I have changed these columns within my original reportin Power BI Desktop  (the underlying tables did not change) and found that this went without any issues; all widgets were using the new renamed columns automatically. After I republished the data set to Power BI services, I found that all the reports there were broken and the connection between the old and new namings could not be made. Did I do something wrong here?

In the end I only care about the namings that are exposed to the users, what the columns in the data model are called, is in that sense irrelevant. Hower, Power BI does not seem to offer a way to "alias" columns rather than rename them troughout the enitre model. Is there something I'm missing here?

How do I rename columns in a dataset without content created in the web service breaking all together?

Many thanks.

[v-lili6-msft · Accepted solution]

hi, @jjlek 

You may need to replace the field on visuals manually.

When you rename the column in the dataset, the fields name on visual won't be replace and couldn't match with new fields.

So just adjust fileds of visuals in these new reports manually.

For example, I change the name of the column in dataset from Qty to Value. Now just adjust it manually in Edit View in power bi service.

Best Regards,

Lin

[jjlek]

This is rather dissapointing, as similar tools would give you the option to add an alias or friendly name to a column, without changing the actual name within the data model.