Ensure required data transformations are materialized: For SQL Server relational database sources (and other relational database sources), computed columns can be added to tables. Publish to the Power BI service The benefits of Import and DirectQuery models can be combined into a single model by configuring the storage mode of the model tables. A limit of 1 million rows can return on any query. For more information, see Assume referential integrity settings in Power BI Desktop. Specifically, the guidance is designed to help you determine whether DirectQuery is the appropriate mode for your model, and to improve the performance of your reports based on DirectQuery models. Only use this relationship feature when necessary, and it's usually the case when implementing a many-to-many relationship across a bridging table. Navigate to or enter the path to the trace file for the current Power BI session, such as \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop\AnalysisServicesWorkspaces\AnalysisServicesWorkspace2058279583\Data, and open FlightRecorderCurrent.trc. You can't change a model from import to DirectQuery mode. There is no gateway error for DirectQuery to Power BI dataset To solve this error, go to the setting of the dataset. As the number of visuals increases, some visuals refresh serially, which increases the time it takes to refresh the page. I followed all of the steps in this video . To access these options in Power BI Desktop, go to File > Options and settings > Options and select Query reduction. These limits apply to cloud data sources and on-premises data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata. This use of subselect queries hasn't been shown to affect performance for the data sources DirectQuery supports. This approach is useful when many visuals are on a single page, or many users access a report at the same time. Every user sees the same data, unless row-level security is defined as part of the report. For more information, see How visuals cross-filter each other in a Power BI report. The general format of Power BI Desktop queries is to use subqueries for each model table the queries reference. Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support. The source must be able to handle such a query load while maintaining reasonable performance. This requirement applies whenever you use DistinctCount aggregation, or in all cases that use DirectQuery over SAP BW or SAP HANA. For example, selecting a different value on a slicer requires sending a new set of queries to refresh all of the affected visuals. After you download and install SQL Server Management Studio, open SQL Server Profiler. In many cases, getting the values for such totals requires sending separate queries to the underlying source. Once you publish a report to the Power BI service, the maximum number of concurrent queries also depends on fixed limits set on the target environment where the report is published. If you connect live, you don't define a query, and the entire external model shows in the field list. The refresh of a visual is instantaneous if the exact same results were recently obtained. However, the first query returns all categories from the underlying source, and then the TopN are determined based on the returned results. Please mark my reply as solution. Attend online or watch the recordings of this Power BI specific conference, which includes 130+ sessions, 130+ speakers, product managers, MVPs, and experts. This time, only metadata will be loaded into Power BI. A Composite model will consist of at least one DirectQuery source, and possibly more. For example, a visual might show transactions in the past day. The same is true for selecting a visual to cross-highlight other visuals, or changing a filter. Is there some other way to see data, including my custom column? Median: Generally, any aggregation (Sum, Count Distinct, etc.) This approach makes it easier to interpret the trace file. Depending on the cardinality of the column involved, this approach can lead to performance issues or query failures because of the one-million row limit on query results. There is one exception to this guidance, and it concerns the use of the COMBINEVALUES DAX function. If you don't find the performance issues in Power BI Desktop, you can focus your investigation on the specifics of the report in the Power BI service. Power BI import and DirectQuery capabilities evolve over time. Using variables in DAX makes the code much easier to write and read. To guarantee this consistency would require the overhead of refreshing all visuals whenever any visual refreshed, along with using costly features like snapshot isolation in the underlying data source. Your report authors should be educated on the content described in the Optimize report designs section. For more information about Power BI Premium capacity resource limitations, see Deploying and Managing Power BI Premium Capacities. Attend online or watch the recordings of this Power BI specific conference, which includes 130+ sessions, 130+ speakers, product managers, MVPs, and experts. Often, optimizations need to be applied directly to the data source to achieve good performance results. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to relate tables by using multiple columns. Advanced text filters like 'contains': Advanced filtering on a text column allows filters like contains and begins with. For example, filters can include the top 10 categories. I see myself eventually . For multidimensional sources like SAP BW, you can't switch from DirectQuery to import mode either, because of the different treatment of external measures. You can refresh an open dashboard to ensure that it's current. For a deeper discussion, refer directly to the DirectQuery in SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services whitepaper. Replacing multiple card visuals with a single multi-row card visual can achieve a similar page layout. You can add '?cross-company=true' after the name of the data entity, to retrieve cross-company data. In particular, it's not possible to use a query with common table expressions, nor one that invokes stored procedures. For relational sources, you can still select a set of tables that define a query that logically returns a set of data. No queries are sent until you select the Apply button on the filter or slicer. Limitations in calculated columns: Calculated columns can only be intra-row, that is they can refer only to values of other columns of the same table, without using any aggregate functions. The slicer or filter options will not be applied until the report user clicks the button. Now I added a custom column and want to see the result in the data view. The Analysis Services database has a DirectQuery connection to the SQL Server. This approach is reasonable for calculating the median over a relatively small number of results. Instead, add materialized columns in the relational database source, and consider indexing them. For more information about DirectQuery in Power BI, see: This article described aspects of DirectQuery that are common across all data sources. Databases like SQL Server, Access, and Amazon Redshift. For example, you can parse JSON documents, or pivot data from a column to a row form. The number of users that share the report and dashboard. Performance issues are often based on the performance of the underlying source. Start diagnosing performance issues in Power BI Desktop, rather than in the Power BI service. There's a fixed limit of 1 million rows that can return in any single query to the underlying source. A live connection also differs from DirectQuery in several ways. If your Add column operation is too complex to be handled by the connector it won't work. You can use the following process to view the queries Power BI sends and their execution times. You can edit those queries before loading the data, for example to apply filters, aggregate the data, or join different tables. You should use DirectQuery only for sources that can provide interactive query performance. A DirectQuery model can be optimized in many ways, as described in the following bulleted list. DirectQuery in Power BI offers the greatest benefits in the following scenarios: You can refresh models with imported data at most once per hour, more frequently with Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium subscriptions. Aggregation tables can be added to DirectQuery tables to import a summarized representation of the table. Data sources like SQL Server optimize away the references to the other columns. As long as the underlying source offers a suitable level of performance, you can use the same set of visualizations as for imported data. A timeout of four minutes applies to individual queries in the Power BI service. For example, to retrieve to the sales orders that were created in the last year (relative to today's date). This article primarily discusses DirectQuery capabilities. To change the maximum number for the current file in Power BI Desktop, go to File > Options and Settings > Options, and select DirectQuery in the Current File section of the left pane. Click on " Storage Mode: DirectQuery (Click to change) " as shown below. DirectQuery supports single sign-on (SSO) to Azure SQL data sources, and through a data gateway to on-premises SQL servers. Connecting to Power BI datasets and Analysis Services in DirectQuery mode always uses SSO, so the security is similar to live connections to Analysis Services. It's fine when the median is to be calculated over a relatively small number of results, but performance issues (or query failures due to the 1 million-row limit) will occur if the cardinality is large. The query issued to the SQL Server is like this: SELECT MAX ( [t0]. In many cases, additional queries must be sent to the underlying source to obtain the values for the totals. The table is around 20 million rows and 25 columns and it take around 15 mins to be totally loaded into Power BI The query finished executing on Snowflake in less that 2 mins and the remaining time was spent on transferring the data to Power BI We tried loading the same table from SQL Server it was ~7x faster For more information about DirectQuery, check out the following resources: More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, DirectQuery in SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services, Power BI modeling guidance for Power Platform, SQL Server Index Architecture and Design Guide, Get started with Columnstore for real-time operational analytics, Guidance for designing distributed tables in Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse), Assume referential integrity settings in Power BI Desktop, Relationships with a many-many cardinality in Power BI Desktop, Deploying and Managing Power BI Premium Capacities, How visuals cross-filter each other in a Power BI report, DirectQuery model troubleshooting in Power BI Desktop, The first query will retrieve the categories meeting the condition (Sales > $15 million), The second query will then retrieve the necessary data for the visual, adding the categories that met the condition to the WHERE clause. Such traces can contain useful information about the details of how the query executed, and how to improve it. The Power BI Desktop\Traces folder opens. For example, when you use import to connect to SQL Server Analysis Services, you define a query against the external SQL Server Analysis Services source, and import the data. DirectQuery requires no large transfer of data, because it queries data in place. If the performance issues don't occur in Power BI Desktop, you can investigate the specifics of the report in the Power BI service. Depending on the location of the original data source, it might be necessary to configure an on-premises data gateway for the refresh. They can achieve dramatic performance enhancements when visuals query higher-level aggregates. By default, Power BI Desktop logs events during a given session to a trace file called FlightRecorderCurrent.trc. Applying filters early generally makes those intermediate queries less costly. Given that more than one query might be required for a single visual, for example, to obtain the details and the totals, even consistency within a single visual isn't guaranteed. You can use multiple data sources in a DirectQuery model by using composite models. Immediately after you publish a DirectQuery report, you must configure the credentials of the user to use. Select Refresh to clear any caches and refresh all the visuals on the page to show the latest data. With imported data, you can easily apply a sophisticated set of transformations to clean and reshape the data before using it to create visuals. It describes DirectQuery use cases, limitations, and guidance. This article primarily covers DirectQuery with Power BI, not SQL Server Analysis Services. Some visuals might require more than one query. Experiment with setting Assume referential integrity. A visual that asks for data at a higher-level aggregate, such as TotalSales by Year, further aggregates the aggregate value. Using Explore in Excel results in poor performance: You can explore a dataset by using the Explore in Excel capability, which lets you create pivot tables and pivot charts in Excel. The Power Query Editor query defines the subselect queries. The earliest known humans arrived in these lands around 900,000 years ago. Apply filters first: When first designing reports, we recommend that you apply any applicable filtersat report, page, or visual levelbefore mapping fields to the visual fields. The following columns are also of interest: To capture a trace to help diagnose a potential performance issue: Open a single Power BI Desktop session, to avoid the confusion of multiple workspace folders. Apply filters first: Always apply any applicable filters at the start of building a visual. Course Hero uses AI to attempt to automatically extract content from documents to surface to you and others so you can study better, e.g., in search results, to enrich docs, and more. But returning the slicer to its original value could result in it again showing the cached previous value. For example, assume you have the following TPC-DS tables in SQL Server: Results in the following visual in Power BI: Refreshing that visual produces the SQL query in the following image. Thank you very much.If not, please upload some insensitive data samples and expected output. The team usually consists of model developers and the source database administrators. You can set the maximum number of connections DirectQuery opens for each underlying data source, which controls the number of queries concurrently sent to each data source. This data presents issues for solutions based on data import. Different environments (such as Power BI, Power BI Premium, or Power BI Report Server) each can impose different throughput constraints. The following standard database practices apply to most situations: For better performance, base relationships on integer columns rather than joining columns of other data types. You also might be able to view traces and diagnostic information that the underlying data sources emit. In addition to the above list of optimization techniques, each of the following reporting capabilities can contribute to performance issues: Measure filters: Visuals containing measures (or aggregates of columns) can have filters applied to those measures. DirectQuery is also a feature of SQL Server Analysis Services. This article doesn't cover the wide range of database optimization recommendations across the full set of potential underlying sources. If data changes, there's no guarantee of consistency between visuals. This table uses direct query and cannot be shown 10-21-2020 08:33 AM Hi, I hope you can help me. Suggested Answer: C DirectQuery: No data is imported or copied into Power BI Desktop. Validate that simple visuals refresh within five seconds, to provide a reasonable interactive experience. This approach causes two queries to be sent to the underlying source: This approach generally works well if there are hundreds or thousands of categories, as in this example. It's also important that fact-type dimension columns contain valid dimension key values. Median: Any aggregation, such as Sum or Count Distinct, is pushed to the underlying source. The ability to add custom columns in a direct query depends on the ability for the query to fold. You must refresh in Power BI Desktop to reflect schema changes. Double-check that the top query is selected. If it is, kindly Accept it as the solution. Please mark my reply as solution. Remember that closing Power BI Desktop deletes the trace file. Historical data is not of particular interest, and it is just occasionally needed. If the slowness of the source causes individual visuals to take longer than tens of seconds to refresh, the experience becomes unreasonably poor. If a single visual on a Power BI Desktop page is sluggish, use the Performance analyzer to analyze the queries that Power BI Desktop sends to the underlying source. The following sections list general implications of using DirectQuery, and limitations related to performance, security, transformations, modeling, and reporting. If you can't meet your goals by importing data, for example if the data changes frequently and reports must reflect the latest data, consider using DirectQuery. Design distributed tables: For Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse) sources, which leverage Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architecture, consider configuring large fact-type tables as hash distributed, and dimension-type tables to replicate across all the compute nodes. These interactions can be switched off, either for the entire report (as described above for Query Reduction options), or on a case-by-case basis. However, large data might also make the performance of queries against that underlying source too slow. select that in the gateway. The only workaround is to actually materialize the multiple columns into a single column in the underlying data source. Every user interaction on the report might result in visuals being refreshed. This query-time data conversion commonly results in poor performance. Adding new calculations, like calculated columns and measures. You should switch off this interaction if the time taken to respond to users' selections is unreasonably long. When you use DirectQuery to connect to a data source in Power BI Desktop, the following results occur: You use Get Data to select the source. In the Power BI service, you can pin individual visuals or entire pages to dashboards as tiles. To do so, in Power BI Desktop go to File > Options and settings > Options, and in the Preview features section, select the DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Analysis Services checkbox to enable this preview feature. Examples of modeling include: You can still make many of these model enrichments when you use DirectQuery, and use the principle of enriching the raw data to improve later consumption. Using bidirectional cross filtering can lead to query statements that don't perform well. If there's a Date table available in the underlying source, as is common in many data warehouses, you can use the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) time-intelligence functions as usual. You can more easily identify and diagnose these issues in the isolated Power BI Desktop environment, without involving components like an on-premises gateway. For example, if the Sales table stores data at order line level, you could create a view to summarize this data. The setting is only enabled when there's at least one DirectQuery source in the model. When hidden, it is not available in the Fields pane and so cannot be used to configure a visual. The workspace folder is deleted when the associated Power BI Desktop session ends. This situation also applies when you connect to the following sources, except there's no option to import the data: Power BI datasets, for example connecting to a Power BI dataset that's already published to the service, to author a new report over it. For example, a visual might show aggregate values from two different fact tables, or contain a more complex measure, or contain totals of a non-additive measure like Count Distinct. Increasing the Maximum Connections per Data Source value ensures more queries (up to the maximum number specified) can be sent to the underlying data source, which is useful when numerous visuals are on a single page, or many users access a report at the same time. The following Power BI reporting capabilities can cause performance issues in DirectQuery-based reports: Measure filters: Visuals that use measures or aggregates of columns can contain filters in those measures. (It is usually the primary key column of dimension-type tables.) For example, you can filter to the rows where the date is in the last 14 days. If the measures operate in a satisfactory manner, you can define more complex measures, but pay attention to performance. Update any necessary statistics in the source. There's no restriction on how frequently the data can be refreshed. This workaround is reasonable for imported data, but for DirectQuery it results in a join on an expression. Defining column formatting, default summarization, and sort order. To ensure the filter is applied based on the date at the time the report runs, apply the date filter in the report. These folders are named with an integer suffix, such as AnalysisServicesWorkspace2058279583. Remove milliseconds data from your source columns. Similarly, creating or editing a report requires queries to be sent for each step on the path to produce the final visual. Opening an existing report or authoring a new report in the Power BI service queries the underlying data source to retrieve the necessary data. We recommend that you educate your report consumers about your reports that are based on DirectQuery datasets. Failing to apply filters early can result in hitting the one-million row limit. Instead, when you build a visual, Power BI Desktop sends queries to the underlying data source to retrieve the necessary data. Also, further actions in Power BI Desktop don't immediately appear. Follow this approach to capture a trace to help diagnose a potential performance issue: Open a single Power BI Desktop session, to avoid the confusion of multiple workspace folders. I set up Dynamic Row Level Security for a report that uses a table from DataVerse as my security table (with email addresses). The following screenshot highlights a group of events for a query. Try asking the Power BI Community, More info about Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) download, DirectQuery model guidance in Power BI Desktop, Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse). These columns are based on an expression, like Quantity multiplied by UnitPrice. Multiple DAX queries can run in parallel, so events from different groups can be interleaved. Alternate credentials aren't supported when making DirectQuery connections to SQL Server from Power BI Desktop. One reason Power BI uses this pattern is so you can define a Power Query query to use a specific query statement. Dataset settings Remember that you need gateway for any datasource which is located on-premises and Imported. During model project authoring, you can change the DirectQuery partition by using the Partition Manager dialog box in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). For more information about using large models in Power BI, see large datasets in Power BI Premium. Although the results might be the same depending on the actual data, the performance might be drastically different because of indexes. For some sources, you can also connect using DirectQuery. However I get "This table uses directquery and cannot be shown". Limit the number of visuals on a page: When you open a page or change a page level slicer or filter, all the visuals on the page refresh. There are three subqueries for the Web_Sales, Item, and Date_dim model tables.