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PetyrBaelish
Resolver III
Resolver III

Pipeline and power bi dataset connection anomaly

I have a premium workspace with a published app. This includes two reports, both created in Power BI Desktop. The first report was created, then published to the workspace (Report A / Dataset A). The second report was created (Report B) by connecting to the Power BI dataset that was created when I published the first report (Dataset A). Both reports were published to the same workspace, so we've ended up with the followign in a workspace:

Dataset A

Report A

Report B (that connects to Dataset A)

 

I now want to start using pipelines. As the above workspace is being used, I made this the production workspace and then delpoyed it to the previous stage 2 times so I have a Development, Test and Production workspace. The dataset and 2 reports are in all workspaces as expected.

 

I was trying to test an anomoly I noticed on an unrelated project, in another pipeline - the anomoly was that there was also a report (like Report B) that connects to a dataset (like Dataset A) - but I noticed that Report B in the Development workspace was connecting to Dataset A in the production workspace. I found that strange and I'm not sure if I've got something mixed up, or if Power BI pipelines are not propogating connections to Power BI datasets correctly. I would expect Report B to connect to dataset A from the same workspace, and never for the report/dataset to be going cross-workspaces.

 

The problem I have run into testing this, is that in my Test and Development workspaces, when I open Report B in PBI Service the "download this file" option is greyed out. My question is why? Technically speaking when I deployed this report to a previous stage, then the report was effectively speaking created in PBI Service... but as the report was originally created in Power Bi Desktop I would expect this to be remembered, and therefore this option not be greyed out.

 

What I'm trying to do is download the pbix file for Report B, from the Development workspace, and check which dataset its connecting to - Dataset A from the Dev workspace, or dataset A from the Production workspace.

 

So that's 2 questions really...

a) why is "download this file" greyed out for Report B in the Development workspace which was originally createds in Power BI Desktop, greyed out?

b) in situations where report B connects to Dataset A oin a production workspace, and the workspace is deployed back to a previous stage - does report B connect to Dataset A in the production workspace, or detaset A in the test/dev workspace?

 

Side note:

In the Dev/Test workspaces I can still "download the file" for Report A

In the production workspace I can still "download the file" for both report A and report B

 

I want my organisation to start using pipelines, but this is quite strange behaviour that I'm looking to understand better.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
v-easonf-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi, @PetyrBaelish 
a)During pipeline deployment, you can only download reports (Report B) created from sharing datasets in the first stage you deployed. You cannot download them in subsequent deployment stages.

b) Regardless of normal deployment or backwards deploymen, it just copies the content of your previous stage to the current stage. If you successfully deploy Dataset A and Report b to subsequent stages, you don't need to consider that the report/dataset will go cross-workspaces.
Report B in production workspace is only related to Dataset A in production workspace. Even you deleted the  Dataset A in test/dev workspace, the Report B in production workspace will still work well.
Similarly, Report B in test/dev workspace is only related to Dataset A in test/dev workspace workspace. Even you deleted the Dataset A in production workspace, the Report B in test/dev workspace workspace will still work well after you have deploy the content.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Eason

 

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3 REPLIES 3
v-easonf-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi, @PetyrBaelish 
a)During pipeline deployment, you can only download reports (Report B) created from sharing datasets in the first stage you deployed. You cannot download them in subsequent deployment stages.

b) Regardless of normal deployment or backwards deploymen, it just copies the content of your previous stage to the current stage. If you successfully deploy Dataset A and Report b to subsequent stages, you don't need to consider that the report/dataset will go cross-workspaces.
Report B in production workspace is only related to Dataset A in production workspace. Even you deleted the  Dataset A in test/dev workspace, the Report B in production workspace will still work well.
Similarly, Report B in test/dev workspace is only related to Dataset A in test/dev workspace workspace. Even you deleted the Dataset A in production workspace, the Report B in test/dev workspace workspace will still work well after you have deploy the content.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Eason

 

Thanks for your response; I accept what you're saying, but doesn't this render the deployment to previous stages as redundant? Given what you're saying:

 

- We have a workspace with dataset A, Report A & Report B (where report B connects to dataset A).

- They are deployed backwards, and nothing goes cross workspace (although there's nothing to visually confirm this)

- At this point I want to make changes to Report B in the Dev workspace - but I can't open it in Power Bi Desktop (which I need to as I want to use desktop features unavailable in PBI Service).

 

So how do I now edit Report B in a manner that follows the pipeline (i.e. from Dev -> Test -> Production)? It seems to me that I'd have to manually open Report B from production, manually repoint it towards Dataset A in Dev, and then manually publish it to the Dev workspace in order to get an editable report in the Dev workspace... given I have to do this, it kind of means deploying to the previous stage was fairly pointless - I'd have been better off doing everything manually from the start.

 

Trying to think of other ways around it, I could publish Report B from Production into the Dev workspace, but then its pointing to the Production dataset and therefore things have gone cross workspace.

 

Perhaps I should avoid backward deployment, but as Power BI is heavily used prior to pipelines becoming available, everythign is a Production workspace, it was logical to backward deploy rather than turn all of the production workspaces into Dev ones, and then reconfigure access at each stage... it seemed simpler to backward deploy but this case of reports becoming PBI service only reports throws a massive spanner in the works.

@PetyrBaelish,

The main aspect to oncsider here is that the Power BI service IS NOT a version control system, and therefore it is not recommended to use the download option just to continue editing PBIX files. It is unavailable in all kind of situations, pipelines is just one of them. We recommed you use dedicated tools for that, like OneDrive or SharePoint.

From that point, it really doesn't matter how you decide to fill your workspace (either backward deployment or assigning all workspaces), you just use the last PBIX version you keep in OneDrive/SPO to continue editing, and then upload it to Dev stage.

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