Document the Power BI Tenant objects: Workspace, reports, datasets, dataflows with no code

Previously I explained how you can document a single Power BI file. Another very common documentation requirement is to find out what objects, workspaces exist in the Power BI tenant and document them all. even you may want to download all the PBIX files from the service and keep it for versioning purposes. In this article and video, I’ll explain how you can do that in a few clicks.

Video

Power BI Helper; Download and install for FREE

If you haven’t done it already, download and install the Power BI Helper, it is a free application to use and you can use it for many useful things to do with the development of the Power BI reports as well as checking the memory space each column takes. Here you can download it: https://powerbihelper.org/

Service tenant settings in the Power BI Helper

To use any of the Power BI service features in the Power BI Helper, you need to register the Power BI Helper as an app under your tenant, the article below explains all the steps in details of how to do that:

Scan Service Objects

After you registered the app (has to be done only once), then you can login with your Power BI account. Go to the Service tab in the Power BI Helper, and Login, you should use the Power BI account that you want all the objects to be documented based on that (The Power BI Helper will be able to see only the objects that this Power BI account has access to it, If you want the entire content on the service, you should try the Power BI administrator account).

After the login, you can choose if you want to download reports (and choose the folder to do so). You also need to check the box that says “Login as Admin” if you are using the Power BI Administrator account to log in. After that, you can Scan Service Objects.

The scan of service objects might take some time, it depends on your internet connection speed, whether you have selection “Download reports” or not, The amount of objects (reports, datasets, dataflows, workspaces) that you have on the Power BI tenant. After the process is done, you should see the objects listed in the Power BI Helper;

In this tab of Power BI Helper, you can do many operations with the objects. However, in this article, our focus is documentation. You can simply click on Export to Document, or go to the Documentation tab, and click on Create service documentation.

Here is the exported HTML document;

Objects that are documented (at the time of this article) are including;

• List of workspaces
• List of reports
• List of dashboards
• List of datasets
• List of dataflows
• List of Apps
• Configuration details
• List of gateways
• List of data sources

Configurations

As you have seen, the documentation was just a few clicks and easy-to-do. If you want to configure the output document, you can do that in the Documentation tab, in two main sections;

Configure the style of the documentation

The style configuration are about fonts, colors, sizes of tables, headings and other parts of the generated document.

Sections and information to document

You can choose what information you want to document from the Power BI tenant. We recommend keeping them all selected for the full documentation. 

Export the information as CSV files (Export Metadata)

We found it also helpful to export the information above as CSV file for each object type. Power BI Helper can do that for you with just one click on the Export Metadata;

Here is what the exported result looks like:

Checkout Power BI Helper for other useful things

Power BI Helper can also help you to document the entire Power BI file and report. Power BI Helper also helps you to performance tune, and reduce the size of your Power BI file, clean up your model, export data or metadata of the Power BI. In general, it helps you to have a better Power BI development experience. Check out more about what you can do with this tool. below are just a couple of examples:

• Document the entire Power BI file using Power BI Helper
• Export the data of a table using Power BI Helper
• Reduce the size of Power BI file using Power BI Helper

Reza Rad

Trainer, Consultant, Mentor

Reza Rad is a Microsoft Regional Director, an Author, Trainer, Speaker and Consultant. He has a BSc in Computer engineering; he has more than 20 years’ experience in data analysis, BI, databases, programming, and development mostly on Microsoft technologies. He is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP for 12 continuous years (from 2011 till now) for his dedication in Microsoft BI. Reza is an active blogger and co-founder of RADACAD. Reza is also co-founder and co-organizer of Difinity conference in New Zealand, Power BI Summit, and Data Insight Summit.
Reza is author of more than 14 books on Microsoft Business Intelligence, most of these books are published under Power BI category. Among these are books such as Power BI DAX Simplified, Pro Power BI Architecture, Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star, Power Query books series, Row-Level Security in Power BI and etc.
He is an International Speaker in Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Business Applications Summit, Data Insight Summit, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday and SQL user groups. And He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Reza’s passion is to help you find the best data solution, he is Data enthusiast.
His articles on different aspects of technologies, especially on MS BI, can be found on his blog: https://radacad.com/blog.