3 REASONS to use a single dataset for your Power BI reports

yo what's up this is Patrick from Guyana Q and in this video I'm gonna talk about my top three reasons why should create your power bi reports against a single central data model in Part VI stay tuned okay single central data model did you do a video on this already when you talked about data silos yeah I did doesn't seem that anyone is listening and also I was reading an article by Christopher Wagner Christopher thanks for all the comments and blog posts where you give at them and all these great kudos we appreciate it thank you you wrote a blog post talking about data flows and data sets recently in one section he said you should create use a single data set and he even called out I think accelerator bi when they called it a golden model and actually wrote a really good article should go read that article and and I just decided I'm gonna talk about the top three reason why I think Patrick think you should use a single central data model okay alright so let's get into this the first reason reason number uno is because oftentimes when you create your report you build your data model out the first thing people do wait a minute instead of all this talking you guys know I like to do is head over to my laptop alright so this is what happens the first time someone creates a data model or I have built my nice data model with all my Dax and my relationships and you know my data prep and M and everything the first thing they do is they start designing reports I I designed this really beautiful report then I publish the report to the power bi service then I give people access to it typically what will happen is they'll come back to me and go Patrick hey can you add another page that answers this question so this first page answer this question the next page answers this question then they show someone and something that person will come back and say Patrick hey can you add another page to this report but I want to answer this question and the date amount was great because it can answer all these questions but now what happens is if you take a look at this report this is what happens that another page they have another page at another page and another page in my report consumers go wait a minute what the French toast every time I open this report I got a tab through or look for the page that I want it's too much work right she wants work so instead of doing that if you use a central model now you can isolate those pages to a given report without duplicating those that data set so let me show you what I'm talking about so instead of doing this if you use a central data set all right I can open up a new desktop I choose right here in the ribbon and if you enable the new ribbon you can see where it says power bi data sets or you can click get data and go to Power Platform either way I'll take you where you need to go all right I'm gonna go here it's gonna open up a dialog window Adam did a video talking about shared data sets and stuff and with the endorsements if you don't know anything about that you should go watch this video and then what I can do is I'll sort my workspace and I know there's a workspace I have power bi data sets and I just choose data model one click create now I'm live connected to that data model so instead of adding multiple pages right to that single report that contains the data model what I can do now is I'm live connected so let's say someone comes from another department said hey I saw that report you created for Jim or su whoever it was and I want you to create a report for me and use this data model but I want to answer a different question so instead of opening the original data you know the original P bi X file with those pages in it I can isolate and answer a particular question in this report and just publish this up and now I'm only publishing you know the visualizations the report not an additional data model right so reason number one I can minimize the pages in my report and make my end user so much happier by connecting to this central model ok that's reason number one reason number two reason number two is really important right so the first scenario was you just added multiple pages but this is something that's more problematic this is something that I see so much and it drives me bananas so let's go back to my laptop so this is what will happen so someone will come up and they'll see this report that I created and they go oh man this is beautiful this is beautiful Patrick can you create something like this for me and this is what the report developer or the data modeler the part we'll do that go over to the file system they'll say right click copy paste and they'll have a new data model a new PB IX file they'll open up the PB I X file and start building the reports and then publish that and now I have two models that I need to maintain in this case I have five models that I need to maintain the logic so if you had a measure change some logic and some Dax modify the data prep change the relationships you probably need to go through every one of those models to manage this to update this and keep this all in sync you guys know I like to do this is the first one of the year I'm not lazy I'm what just really efficient that's not efficient copying those models over and over again don't do it don't do it instead what you should do is let me show you back to my laptop okay they say well this report is nice but I need to add a measure all you do is you go back over to the original data model that we published earlier and I mean I had just a really really crappy measure I mean it's gonna add a measure here just a fake measure just so you can see right how this works I'm gonna create a measure we're gonna call this measure Patrick equals 1 Patrick's number 1 all right so add that measure and then what I'm gonna do is publish this I'm gonna have to give it a say first I'll let it prompt me for the save I'll publish course save now come here and we'll look for my power bi data sets workspace or are you there he goes click select it's gonna say hey it already exists that you want to override it of course I do I get it over written there we go now it's published then I go back over to where them live connect it and you can see internet sales right here not creating a new PB IX file this is my new report that I'm about to be able for the new person if I just click refresh there's the new Patrick measure right there right cuz I'm live connected any schema changes that I make if I click that refresh it's gonna go get that stuff for me and X start using that and building my new report so I've separated my data model from the reporting and now I have 2 different facets I'm using power bi for two separate things and I've isolated that single data model and we can use this and now here I can put just the pages I need for that report but more importantly I'm only maintaining my logic in one place that's number two it's crazy this is bananas first one minimizing them with pages in a report number two right minimize how where I need to maintain my logic I'm only maintaining the logic in one place so what's number three Patrick well let me show you number three years imagine if you use the last scenario where you're copying copying the data models once you publish all those data models out if I go over to Harvey I I have five data models published here what do I need to do those data models I've got a refresh them all so I need to schedule the Refresh of all of these models right and you guys may be thinking hey it's working for me so for talk to your DBA all right talk to the person that's maintaining that source you could be indirectly you don't you don't realize what you're doing putting a burden on that back-end source right you can be impeding performance because you're refreshing the exact same tables over and over again and there could be other applications using your data warehouse using the source system and so you can minimize that by centralizing you know creating that one golden model thank you accelerating B I was waiting to use that in this in the video right that one version of the truth and now you only need to refresh that model once as opposed to refreshing it six times and the last thing I want to talk about the refresh is if you're using the premium capacity you only get a certain number of slots so like a p1 for example you only can refresh six right data models concurrently at the same time and if I added a seventh one you know with the Refresh for that time slot it's gotta wait and now it's gonna make my refresh is take longer make sense all right three two reasons right that you want to do this what do you guys think you got other reasons remember these are my top three reasons there's other reasons why you should have a main to maintain a single model but what's do you have other reasons why you should do this let me know do you have any other comments questions you know what to do post it in the comments below first time visiting the guy in the cube channel hit that subscribe button if you liked my video me a big thumbs up as always from Adam and myself thanks for watching we'll see in the next video

Channel: Guy in a Cube

Views: 152,314

Keywords: power bi, power bi dataset, power bi dataset refresh, power bi desktop, power bi desktop tutorial, power bi for beginners, power bi live connection, power bi pro, power bi reports, power bi training, power bi tutorial, power bi tutorial for beginners, introduction to power bi, data silos

Id: OH6aekIjcUI

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 08 2020