October 12, 2017

Power BI Helper

2017-10-12_05h45_59

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Download Power BI Helper from here:

What Power BI Helper version July 2019 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • All NOT working DAX Measures
  • Export data tables into CSV files
  • Getting all Apps information from service and documenting it
  • Getting all Gateways, Data Sources, and service configurations and documenting it
  • Some enhancements and more information available from Tables, Columns, and Measures

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version April 2019 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • XMLA endpoint Connectivity
  • Connecting to Power BI objects (workspaces, dashboards, datasets, reports, dataflows) in the service
  • Documentation of all Power BI objects in the service
  • Downloading a version of all Power BI reports (PBIX files) from all workspaces to a local folder
  • Publishing Power BI files to multiple workspaces
  • Copying content from one workspace to another!

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version November 2018 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • Column Sizes for Performance Tuning
    • revealing the column sizes in the model
  • Bookmarks and Pages
    • Find Bookmarks belong to each page
    • Find pages associated with each bookmark

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 4.0 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • Beautify M Script
  • Row-Level Security in the Analytics Tab
  • Export the documentation above

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 3.0 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • Export the Model documentation including
    • all tables
    • all measures and their expressions
    • all columns in each table (including calculated columns and their expressions)

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 2.0 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • Connecting to more than one Power BI model. Selection option for the model.
  • Showing the connection mode of the Power BI file.
  • Showing list of tables that are NOT used in any visualization, and can be hidden from the report.
  • Modeling advises
    • List of both directional relationships
    • List of inactive relationships

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 1.0 Does?

This version of the tool will give you these features

  • Export M/Power Query Script
  • Search based on field/table/measure name or properties
  • Runs on Virtual Machines

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 0.3 Does?

This version of the tool will give you the expression tree of DAX measures

  • Measure Dependency Tree
  • List of all tables, columns, and measures in a Power BI Model

The feature of searching makes understanding the Power BI Model much easier. It will help new developers in your Power BI project to get along with your model and report faster, rather than spending lots of time and money to get familiar with it.

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 0.2 Does?

This version of the tool will give you three information related to the search term;

  • Is there any Report Level Filter for this field or table
  • List of all report pages that this field or table used in their “Visual” fields.
  • List of all report pages that this field or table used in their “Page Level Filter”

The feature of searching makes your documentation part easier. It will help new developers in your Power BI project to get along with your model and report faster, rather than spending lots of time and money to get familiar with it.

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

What Power BI Helper version 0.1 Does?

This product is still in version 0.1 (means the very first version); This tool helps in below scenarios;

  • Identify fields that are used in the Fields section of visualizations
  • Identify tables that are used in the Fields or Filter sections of report tab

Providing such result then will help you to hide extra tables from the report. Or even remove them (this part needs some extra manual investigation as of now).

To learn more about this version, read this blog post.

Upcoming Features

For the very first version; We have many limitations! These limitations will be lifted in future versions. Some of these limitations which will be added as a feature in next versions of Power BI helper are;

  • List of fields used in the Filter area
  • List of tables or fields used to create a calculation (calculated table, column, or measure)
  • List of tables or fields used to create a relationship to other tables
  • Details of what fields or tables used in a specific report or visual
  • Diagram view and dependency view of reports and visuals with tables and fields from the model

50 thoughts on “Power BI Helper

  • I just downloaded the Power BI Helper from the website. Most of the instructions are clear, except for the last part that says “Thanks, click on the download link below”. But there is no link below that says “download”. You have to interpret that to click on the link that says “Power BI Helper”.
    It might be easier for people if the link said “Power BI Helper Download Link”

    Good Day 🙂
    Clark

  • hello reza, nice and promising tool this power bi helper, but all my attempts to activate download link whatever valid mail address i’m providing are returning following error message once Dowloads links is activated : ‘Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method.’
    Any explanations to provide us about this situation ?

  • Hi, I filled in my email and tried to download v0.3 but repeatedly got this error message: “Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method.”

    • Thanks Olivier, the download section seems to have an issue, I opened the download link for everyone to use. please use the link there.
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Where is the link for the download? There is nothing under the words “Download Power BI Helper from here:” … just blank lines.

    • Hi scott,
      there should be a place to enter your email right under that, then the download link should be sent to your email. If you don’t see that, tell me please what browser do you use? I used Chrome, IE, Safari, and Firefox it is working in all of those
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Just downloaded ver1.0 and was excited to test out the M script extract. It gave me the message about needing to install 7-zip; so I did. But I still get same message to install 7-zip. Closed and restarted Helper…same result. Do I need to reinstall Helper?

  • Hello My friend,
    Can we export to excel or text file the lists provided by the tool? For exemplo, get the list of measures in a text format?
    Regards my friend!
    Pedro

  • Hi Reza,
    I inserted my email but no mail with download link was sent to me!
    I love your tool!

    thanks
    Lorenzo

    • Hi Lorenzo
      have you got the email?
      we tested it with a number of accounts and they all have received the email. check your spam box too.
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Hi Reza,

    The download link not showing up … I’m using Chrome and IE, neither who the download link, even after refreshing.

    • Hi Scott
      You should enter your email address, and then the download link will be sent to your email a bit after that.
      let me know if still you have issues downloading it
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Hi Reza,
    I have made several attempts to download the Power BI Helper (both V2 and V3) over the past several weeks.
    I get the message a Download Link will be sent to your email address … but nothing is received
    I have used a couple of different email addresses … one ending in .com and another ending in @outlook.com, without success.
    Help!

    ps Very sorry to learn that you are unable to visit the Power BI Summit in Seattle. I attended your session in Dublin back in April. You will be sadly missed.

    • Hi Ted.
      Thanks for your kind words. Hopefully will see you again in Europe.
      Have you not received the email at all? have you checked your spam box?
      Cheers
      Reza

  • There is no link for the download? There is nothing under the words “Download Power BI Helper from here:” … just blank lines. Please fix!

    • Hi Richard,
      there is no link here. just a box to enter your email (you need to have javascript enabled to see that box), then the download link will be sent to your email.
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Hi Reza,

    The tool is really awesome, but can you explain how M script is useful in PowerBI?
    Had also done some googling on M-script but it seems to be Matlab stuff and I am absolutely new to M-script.
    Can you please guide me?

  • Thanks for this great tool. I downloaded it after watching today’s PowerBI webinar.
    Just noticed that the bookmarks contained within ‘groups’ are not visible in the bookmark section. If a screen capture is needed, please, provide an email where I can attach screen captures.

  • Good morning. Thank you for the tool. I have the latest version and here’s the error message I get – “user might now have admin rights” and “value cannot be null, parameter: clienid”
    Thank you!

  • RE the “Export data tables” feature. Is this referring the Export feature on any viz in Power BI report eg at top right click … and select Export and csv or Excel? Thanks

  • I have pbi in corporate environment, don’t know that I can install Helper, but wondered if I could download the Free Power Bi and Helper on my machine, then analyze my work files on my machine? Your thoughts are appreciated.

    • You can install Power BI Helper on any machine. for some of the functionalities, it needs to have Power BI Desktop also installed on the same machine.
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Hi Reza,

    Can we use the Power BI Helper tool for PBIX files built using live connection to get the list of measures?

    Thanks

    • Hi Shipla
      At the moment, you can connect to the source of live connection using the Model Analysis tab, and entering your server address in the “Using XMLA Endpoint” text box, and then connect to the model.
      Cheers
      Reza

  • Really great tool, keep up the good work!

    However when trying to Connect to Model under ‘Model Analysis’ I get an error message and the existing measures are not displayed. Any suggestions?

    The error message (opening as administrator) :

    Method not found: ‘System.String Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Tabular.Measure.get_DataCategory()’

    The error message (without opening as administrator):

    Acces to the path ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\RADACAD\Power BI Helper\Log\20191119.txt’ is denied.

  • Reza,

    I was trying to download your database file so I could learn from your first book: “PowerBI from Rookie to rockstar-Book 1” page 24. The link for “AdventureWorks database examples” opens up in Chrome as a malicious website. Is it safe to download from their or do you have an alternative repository?
    Thanks for all your help.
    MJ

  • Hi Reza,

    First of all thanks for making this great tool available for the Power BI community. It is highly appreciated 🙂

    One thought… would it be possible to integrate Power BI Helper as an external tool within PBI? To have it available within the ribbon would be absolutely great.

    Best,
    Torben

  • Hi Reza,

    I was wondering if this tool is based offline, by uploading a model does this tool allow access for others to view the data set? For security reasons I would like to keep the data out of cloud applications and specific to the machine being worked on.

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