Sue Bayes
January 11, 2022
It is recommended best practise to separate a Power BI report into two parts. One that includes the structure of the report, the imported data, the model with appropriate relationships and the key measures. The second part contains the visual element of the report.
The reason for doing this, is that you then have one single source of the truth that can build many separate reports. By having many different reports you can ensure that you meet specific needs for each user which can then simplify the reporting requirements and the reports themselves, but importantly the data is calculated in the same way for each report giving validity and consistency.
However, one of the current disadvantages of doing so is that when you create a report from an existing dataset (see below) you lose the ability to see the DAX that has created the measure when you hover over the measure.
In my mind it is essential to understand the measure that you are using to ensure that you are visualising the correct data. Understanding or being able to read the DAX code that has been written helps with this.
You can also write comments in the measure that will allow users of your reports to understand the purpose of the measure.
Using the macro element within Tabular Editor allows you to write a piece of code that will loop over every measure in your model and places the DAX code inside your measure description in seconds.
foreach (var m in Model.AllMeasures) { m.Description = m.Expression; }
For more information on how to do this, I suggest you check out the link below which will take you to Reid Haven’s site that is full of useful Power BI information.
Any questions, happy to help,
Sue
January 17, 2022
