Share your thoughts on the new semantic model version history Power BI feature (preview)

[emlisa]

Hit Reply to tell us what you think about the new Semantic Model Version History feature so we can continue to improve.

For example:

• What changes would you like to see?
• Any suggestions for additional settings or capabilities?

Thanks,

-Power BI team

To read more about the feature see our documentation 

[andyclap]

I was just making a super-minor change to a data-source, and for some unknown reason every single one of the ids in the report structure changed to something new.

I appreciate that this is a WIP and we still haven't got a diffable/mergeable report format that can be brought under source control...  but what would have caused that?

[emlisa]

I'm sorry to hear about that experience and corresponding frustration. One possible cause could be renaming fields in the semantic model, which would break connections to downstream report references. Just to clarify, the semantic model version history feature only tracks version history for live edited semantic models, not the downstream reports as well. For source control of reports, I recommend using pbip with git integration.

[dkdata]

Please allow ability to disable this on a per model basis. I am no longer able to edit large models as a pro users as it forces the model to convert to large semantic model storage and it fails as it hits memory limits.

This means I am no longer able to edit large models in the service.

[OB]

We don't see Version History in any of the three locations suggested by documentation. We updated the model of a published report. We're on Canada Central. Has this feature been released globally yet?

[emlisa]

This feature is still be rolled out globally through the end of this month, you should start seeing these entry points light up in your region over the next few days. If you still do not see these entry points next week please let me know! Also please continue to post any questions, feedback, or concerns in this forum which I am regularly checking for updates. Look forward to hearing your feedback after you try out the experience! 

[andyclap]

Looks good and reasonably useful to visualize changes.

I'd emphasize that the power of version control is in diff+merge: to allow multiple collaborators on a complex report to clearly see the impact of changes and integrate their changes together.

So is there any appetite to extend this tool to show differences between two arbitrary revisions of semantic models that may have been updated by different team members, with the ability to merge changes? That would extend some of the power of VCS to non-developers.

Personally I'd be happiest if the serialization format was designed with VCS in mind, and we could do everything in git. Tmdl is pretty good, but the report json is unworkable right now. But of course that's just me - I understand the product isn't targetted at developers 🙂

[emlisa]

Thank you for this feedback! This is insightful as we work to continue improving this experience. 

[kerskijm]

I don't see documentation specifically on semantic model version history, has it been updated?  I currently only see instructions on editing the model in the service.  Thanks.

[emlisa]

The documentation is currently being rolled out. Please note that this feature will be available this month. You will start to see this experience become available throughout the month, rather than everything being released all at once today.

[emlisa]

As a follow up the documentation is now live and can be found here.