Forum Discussion
Advocate IIIDataflow Gen1 officially marked as Legacy today — Pro users left with no migration path unless they
Microsoft just published a blog post today (April 2, 2026) titled “Dataflows: Thank you for eight years of Gen1—and why Gen2 is the future” by Miguel Llopis.
Here’s the TL;DR:
∙ Dataflow Gen1 is now officially Legacy. No new features, limited support going forward.
∙ Retirement dates are “being finalized.” Premium customers will get 12 months’ notice.
∙ For Pro and PPU users? No timeline commitment — just a “strong recommendation” to move to Gen2.
∙ All future investment goes to Gen2 only.
Here’s the problem: Dataflow Gen2 requires a Fabric capacity. It does not work on Pro workspaces. Never has.
So if you’re a small team or a solo analyst running Gen1 dataflows on a Pro license — which is exactly the self-service scenario Microsoft marketed for years — you’re now being told:
1. The tool you rely on is dead.
2. The replacement requires a completely different (and more expensive) licensing tier.
3. There is no Gen2-on-Pro option. Not even a lightweight version.
This is not a migration path. This is an upsell disguised as a deprecation notice.
For context, Gen1 on Pro was already limited — no computed entities, no linked entities, no DirectQuery, no incremental refresh, no Enhanced Compute Engine. It was a basic but functional way to centralize Power Query transformations across multiple semantic models. Many of us built real pipelines around it.
Now we’re told that even this basic capability has no future unless we start paying for Fabric capacity (minimum F2 at ~$260/month) on top of our existing Pro licenses.
What I’d like to see from Microsoft:
∙ Either bring a limited Dataflow Gen2 experience to Pro workspaces (even without destinations, just matching current Gen1-on-Pro functionality)
∙ Or commit to a clear, long-term support timeline for Gen1 on Pro — not a vague “foreseeable future”
∙ At minimum, be transparent: if the plan is to force everyone onto Fabric, say it plainly instead of wrapping it in “we recommend you plan your upgrade”
Anyone else impacted by this? Curious to hear how other Pro-license shops are thinking about it.
Link to the blog post: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/dataflows-thank-you-for-eight-years-of-gen1-and-why-gen2-is-the-future
15 Replies
oberthjuAre you sure ? Read the article again. A product with no new features, no bug fixes except “high impact” ones, labeled “Legacy” in the UI, with retirement dates “being finalized” — that is the textbook definition of abandonment, they’re just doing it in slow motion so it doesn’t look like one.
BradHaleAdvocate I
Just read this also. Doesn't look good for any of us on GCC that don't have access to Gen2 yet.
- Jon_vB
Advocate II
To call Gen2 an upgrade over "Gen1," it would have to be able to do what Gen1 can do, and it CAN'T. Gen1 can bring data from your source and apply transformations 1x and make that data available to any semantic model that needs that data - without adding extra cost. If Gen 2 had an option to "retain" the data - instead of having to send it somewhere, then I would love Gen2 and say you can lose Gen1 next week... no problem.
There is a real cost management issue here. I see clients at present where costs are spiralling and Gen2 is often at the heart of it because people do not know how to use them - Power BI is supposed to allow the business to do a lot - Gen1 was a cost neutral way of working that if they did something wrong or made a mistake the worst that would happen is the dataflow failed. Yes we can isolate workspaces and throttle areas but we should not be using a preium tier for development tasks.
For SME's the cost of bringing in Fabric is significant, especially on day 1 of wondering what Power BI will be able to do for them.
This change hits every level of Microsoft's customer base. The only reason to do it is to increase profits; it does not benefit your customer base.
- lbendlin
Super User
It is possible to run a DF Gen2 without a destination. That would make it "equivalent" to a DF Gen1 with the difference that DFGen1 stores CSV files in Azure Blob storage and DF Gen2 stores Delta Lake files in OneLake (i think)
- Jon_vB
So, it's just a matter of letting me create a Gen2 flow as 'just' a Pro user, no fabric license needed. That seems like something they could have sorted out before announcing Gen1 is being retired. I still think getting organizations started that way will eventually lead them to want a data warehouse, but it's nice to have the ability to reuse right from the start.
I strongly agree. Moving core self-service data preparation capabilities from a Pro-accessible feature (Dataflows Gen1) into a Fabric-only architecture (Gen2) creates a gap for smaller teams that relied on shared dataflows without needing dedicated capacity.
It would be helpful to either provide a limited Gen2 experience for Pro users or clarify the long-term support plan for Gen1.
- Thomaslleblanc
They are not adandoning Gen1, just not making any updates to it
- v-sathmakuri
Community Support
Hi oberthju ,
Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Fabric Community.
Microsoft has officially classified Power BI Dataflows Gen1 as a legacy feature, meaning it will no longer receive new feature investments and will only receive support for critical issues. However, Gen1 is not retired yet, and Microsoft has stated that retirement timelines are still being finalized with a commitment that customers will receive advance notice (at least 12 months for Premium scenarios).
As per Microsoft’s guidance, customers should begin planning a transition to Dataflows Gen2, which is the strategic direction for data preparation in the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem.
Thank you!!
- BradHale
It's hard to plan/test if you can't access Gen2 at all.
- oberthju
Useless to reinstate here the original blog post => increasing the insatisfaction and frustration. Please read my post to undestandand why. Any way on reddit Miguel Llopis the original poster from Microsoft answered me a better answer. mllopis_MSFT (u/mllopis_MSFT) - Reddit
What about Pro users? We are a small business and cannot afford Fabric. All of our reports use Gen1 Dataflows. It appears that this will cause a major disruption to our business.
This is clear abandonment!
We have started loosing our trust in Microsoft products.
- edwinter
I also noticed today that the dataflows gen1 are no longer able to receive tags, is this a consequence of becoming legacy, or just a bug?
- BradHale
The option to "Upgrade to Gen2" showed up in our options today. But from what we can tell it does nothing.
