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Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

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Matt Allington on 31 Jan 2018 05:14:44

My definition of a thin workbook is when you connect Power BI to a tabular server. This can be SSAS Tabular or the Power BI Service (golden dataset as covered here https://exceleratorbi.com.au/new-power-bi-reports-golden-dataset/)

When you use Power BI Desktop as a thin workbook, you cannot see the relationship view or the data view. While this makes sense (they are not editable), it means that it is very difficult for someone to write local measures. It is not possible to accurately write a local measure unless the relationships between the tables are visible.

Please add the relationship view so the end user can see the table structure and assist in writing measures.

Comments (7)
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Shelley on 06 Jul 2020 00:03:13

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

Without this, to me, it makes any direct connection extremely difficult to use. I have yet to do it because it is too difficult to understand what is going on in the model, especially because our data and business is complicated.

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Pär Adeen on 05 Jul 2020 23:38:06

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

Totally agree. To quote Alberto Ferrari along others. "You know what i think about developers now knowing their data model...". But to know the data model you also need to be provided with the possibility to first read it. And once adding this feature, please also add the possibility to also read the measures with the data model connected to

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Kawabata Yoshihiro on 05 Jul 2020 23:25:25

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

Agree,
When Power BI Desktop use Import and DirectQuery both,
I can view the relationship all tables, now as composite mode.
I hope to view the relationship at DirectQuery only.

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Ivan Bondarenko on 05 Jul 2020 23:25:09

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

Fully agree, useful addition!

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Power BI Ideas Admin on 05 Jul 2020 23:23:28

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

Great idea Matt. And also agree with Leonardo about the tables. However I suppose the latter would possibly dramatically increase CPU and memory consumption on the server in order to display all the data in PBI Desktop?

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Leonardo Karpinski on 05 Jul 2020 23:22:41

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

And why not of the tables also (Powerpivot read-only)?

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:20:49

RE: Read Only Access to Relationship View in Thin Workbooks

See also https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/33893101-view-ssas-tabular-schema