Documentation. No one likes to do it but you’re happy you did, especially when something ‘hits the fan’. Documenting a Power BI model? Now that can be a bit more challenging.
One might say ‘Well the model stands for itself as documentation’, in a way it does; however, it is not the most efficient way to retrieve information quickly. Here’s your scenario: one of your gateways goes down (someone inadvertently removed the server that houses your Power BI gateway from the Firewall). Whoops! Your high-profile model daily refresh just crashed and burned.
You need to quickly change over the model to refresh on the other gateway; but what service account did you use for the Model credentials? The different gateways have a variety of service accounts for the different gateway locations. [I know…..it’s that ‘one tenant’ in two locations scenario] And I hope you’re using a service account and not your business login…..right? At least you better be using the service account!
Having documentation, either using one of the ways I’ll show you or just documenting as few things in the description box on the model in the service, helps in a pinch.
Come join Susan for creative ways to document your Power BI models, using everything from Power BI Helper, to running DMVs in either DAX Studio or using the new DAX INFO functions inside the new DAX Query tab, or Susan’s absolute favorite way. You’ll need to attend the session to find out what that is and how to implement it! Can you spell ‘Vertipaq Analyzer’? Let’s document together; are you ready?