Paginated Report development cycle - using the Service with Report Builder and multiple sub-reports

[tommy_g]

My traditional Power BI development mode: author in Desktop. PBIX file is saved and versioned to OneDrive. Simple. Publishing is always a one-way process "up" to the Service.

With Paginated Reports, the issue is different as I am juggling several report components. To run a report which includes sub-reports, the sub-reports must be resident in the same Premium Workspace. It is easy to get in the habit of updating them "live", relying on RB Undo when needed.

However, there is no reliable backup or versioning in the online Service as far as I can see. Is there anyone smarter than me in this area 😐?

Since this is a Power BI forum, maybe the same will apply to workflow creation, where there is no local PBIX file.

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

#1 - it's all you.  Get your repository, clone it, push the changes etc.  Nothing is built in.

#2 - We've been asking for this for a while. Maybe it will come some day.  In the meantime ALM Toolkit and Deployment Pipelines are some (weaker) stop gap alternatives.

Keep in mind that RDL files are XML with a weird file extension. You can ingest them in git directly. PBIX (or better PBIT) are ZIP files that you first need to extract, and then you have a bunch of JSON.

[tommy_g]

As a solo developer, my ALM needs are well served with simple versioning + replication to the cloud. I have never used GitHub or other source code management system. Protecting my PBIX, RDL and earlier ASP.NET assets was all I needed. My third and final question is simple, perhaps naive, and maybe bordering on dumb, but why would I "ingest" them into git? To my mind, "ingest" means more than "copy to", and your reference to JSON and ZIP does not seem to apply to my need to protect intact PBIX and RDL files. What will git do for me beyond archiving and versioning my files? (yeah, making you earn your kudos today, let's make it three + Solved! and call it a day)

[lbendlin]

Export template files into a git repository, and often.

[tommy_g]

Thanks for the advice. I need clarification. The files I am speaking about are PBIX and RDL "source" files under active development. I assume your reference to "template" is the generic case. However, my options in PBI vary between "save as", "save a copy" and "download a copy". 

Question #1: am I missing a link to a git repository for source control as I might use with the new setup in Visual Studio?

Question #2: does response imply there is no native ability in the PBI Service itself, every backup / restore operation involves copying to/from external locations, either a git repository or the simpler OneDrive versioning? I suspect no, but want to get your take (or deeper insights) before making this conclusion.