Q&A "We Weren't able to find a good answer."

[squaffle]

Hi all,

My data model has changed quite a bit and although Q&A used to work now it does not.

No matter what I seem to type the service thinks about it for a while and eventually states "We Weren't able to find a good answer."

It used to work fine but as I say, there've been a few model changes over time and it now does nothing. I've tried it in chrome and edge and get the same result so likely not browser based.

I've made sure to enable Q&A within various reports on my dashboard and on the dashboard itself and nothing.

Edit: I should add that I also tried disabling Q&A completely and leaving for over a week before re-enabling in an attempt to get it to play ball : /

I'm using the enterprise gateway with SSAS tabular.

Any help would be greatly appreaciated,

James

[GilbertQ]

Hi @squaffle

Did you enable any Row Level Security?

If so that will disable the Q&A from working in the Power BI Service.

[squaffle]

Hey @GilbertQ, thanks for the interest.
Nope, it's a good idea to check but no row level security or dynamic data masking should be enabled. SSAS won't be contactable overnight by the service but it's not used then so unless the subset of data to enable q&a is cached overnight I wouldn't have expected it to be that either : /

[GilbertQ]

Hi @squaffle

I cannot recall exactly what it was in the past, but I did have a similar issue with a dataset where the Q&A stopped working. And it was to do with a change in my Power BI Model.

I would suggest just checking that under Manage Roles, that No roles have been created.

[squaffle]

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checking that under Manage Roles, that No roles have been created.

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Well checking within SSAS there definitely aren't any roles there. On the PowerBI side, in a different dataset there's a role but in my dataset that connects to the tabular model there isn't even a "security" option to view roles (as tabular) so not 100% sure on that score.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @squaffle

If you can confirm from my blog post below with regards to looking into your Power BI Desktop model.

https://gqbi.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/power-bi-how-to-resolve-qa-is-not-available-for-any-of-the-dat...

[squaffle]

Ah, see what you mean now, once the dataset was up in powerbi I've pretty much always used the web interface to create my reports. When I download a .pbix file and open in Power BI Desktop the entire contents of the modelling tab including "manage roles" is totally greyed out for me so can't access that (probably as on-prem SSAS). Think the equivalent for the web is just the security tab.

Think you linked it just to show me the "manage roles image" but "just in case" unlike the blog post I don't have a "Q&A is not available for any of the datasets used on this dashboard." the dataset seems happy at having Q&A enabled.

one curious thing I spotted but possibly irrelevant is under the technical details of my report tiles in the dash I can see

Package last refresh time2017-3-29 15:31:03

Package last refresh status0

Package next refresh time9999-12-31 23:59:59

The Model section seems fine but not sure what it could mean by "Package"

Model last refresh time2017-5-15 18:50:03

Model last refresh status0

Model next refresh time2017-5-16 00:07:22

Edit: seems like package refresh is just the last time it sync'd with a desktop file which would make sense as next to nothing has been created in the desktop client.

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @squaffle

Thanks for the additional information. I am unsure why it is not working as it should.

Also those dates do seem to be rather weird to be honest.

The only thing I can think of is to create a Power BI Desktop file from scratch, upload that and see if that works as expected for the Q&A.

My thinking is that as part of the initial file it does not have the Synonyms enabled for some reason?

[squaffle]

I've already created a new "test" report and dash from the existing dataset within the web interface and didn't seem to work but you're right it's worth a test creating a fresh connection in a fresh file and seeing if it plays ball. I'll push up the new report and then let it rest till tomorrow and see if it's working.

It is indeed a pretty wierd error, I wouldn't mind so much PowerBI didn't think it COULD use Q&A but as far as it's concerned everything seems fine it just doesn't produce anything. Then again it's still early days for live data connection Q&A, don't think it was added that long ago . .

[GilbertQ]

Hi @squaffle

That is indeed true, maybe there is something within the Power BI Service that we are both unaware of that is causing this issue.

[squaffle]

so before I went to bed I thought I'd check if the new published dataset, report etc would work

Q&A works like a charm on it.

Furthermore, when I download a report created in the web interface and then instantly publish it back to the web

• it creates a new dataset of the same name as the report every time a report is published.
• when report is pinned to a new dashboard(or at least different to the pre-existing one), once again, Q & A works.

It's really wierd . . . will take another look tomorrow

[GilbertQ]

Hi @squaffle

Ok thanks for the update and yes something apparently weird is happeing on your original dataset.

Possibly have a look in the Power BI Desktop, when you click on the Relationships view , and see if you get the Synonyms option in the ribbon.

[squaffle]

 

Is what I have. Likely because it's a live connection with SSAS. Could be that I'd need to create them within SSAS but I'm relatively new to that side of things.

 

At least I have a workaround now of republishing the reports but it's still strange that it's not working with that one dataset but yet new datasets based on the same connection are fine . .