Tag: Power BI Port

Business Intelligence - BI, Copilot, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service

Microsoft Fabric: Use Copilot to Generate Data Model Synonyms

Microsoft Fabric: Use Copilot to Generate Data Model Synonyms

One of my older posts explains how to enable Copilot on Fabric and how to use Copilot to generate Power BI reports. In this post, I aim to explain yet another use case for Copilot that can help us to make a better and more useful semantic model in Power BI using synonyms. In an old post published in May 2016, I explained how to use Power BI synonyms to take our Power BI Q&A experience to another level. In that post, I explained how we could use synonyms to translate data model objects in different languages so the end-user could ask questions in their native language and get the results in Power BI. That was such a cool use case for synonyms, I suppose, wasn’t it? Fast track to December 2023, I believe the Q&A is still one of the coolest Power BI features that stands out when demoing the solutions to the customers; therefore, it makes absolute sense to use synonyms to improve the Q&A‘s efficiency and accuracy. This blog post explores the possibility of using Copilot to define synonyms in Power BI Desktop.

Prerequisites

As explained here, we first need to enable Copilot on Fabric Service. Please note that the technique explained in this post requires either Power BI Premium Capacity or at least F64 Fabric capacity and won’t work on PPU, Embedded capacities, Fabric capacities smaller than F64 or Fabric Trial (FT) capacities.

We also need to have the latest version of Power BI Desktop installed on our machine. With that, let’s begin.

Using Power BI Copilot to generate synonyms

While defining synonyms for the semantic model objects significantly helps with the Q&A experience, it is still a cumbersome process if done manually. So, if we meet the prerequisites, we can summon Copilot to the rescue. Follow these steps after opening a Power BI file in Power BI Desktop:

  1. Ensure you’re signed into Fabric service with your account
  2. Click the Insert tab
  3. Select the Q&A visual
  4. On the Q&A visual, click the Q&A Setup button shown with a gear icon
  5. On the Q&A Setup window, you must see a message offering to “Improve Q&A with synonyms from Copilot” on top of the window; click the Add synonyms button

The following image shows the preceding steps:

Improve Q&A with synonyms from Power BI Copilot in Microsoft Fabric
Improve Q&A with synonyms from Copilot
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Power BI, Power BI Desktop

Quick Tips: Find Power BI Desktop Local Port Number with Model Explorer

Quick Tips: Find Power BI Desktop Local Port Number with Model Explorer

In March 2018, I wrote a blogpost called Four Different Ways to Find Your Power BI Desktop Local Port Number. Last week, Zoe Doughlas from Microsoft left a comment reminding me of a fifth method to get the port which encouraged me to write this quick tip. Thanks to Zoe!

As the name suggests, the blog was about finding Power BI Desktop’s local port number. If you do not have any clue what I mean by local port number, I strongly suggest reading that blog.

This blog focuses on yet another method that wasn’t available back then. Indeed, it is a new feature added to the October 2023 release of Power BI Desktop. This is a Quick Tip so let’s jump straight to the topic and learn how we find the port number (and more) in Power BI Desktop (Oct 2023 and later releases).

Prerequisites

As mentioned, this new feature was added to Power BI Desktop’s October 2023; therefore, we must install that release on our local machine. Indeed, the October 2023 release was packed with many other features, including the Model Explorer (the topic of this blog) and the ability to define calculation groups directly in Power BI Desktop. Many of these features are still in preview; hence, they require enabling.

The following few steps explain how to enable Preview Features in Power BI Desktop:

  1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Settings (the gear icon) from the right pane
  2. On the Options page, from the GLOBAL section, click the Preview features tab
  3. Enable the desired features; for this blog, we need the Model explorer and Calculation group authoring
  4. Click OK

The following image shows the above steps:

Enabling Preview Features in Power BI Desktop
Enabling Preview Features in Power BI Desktop

Depending on the selected features, you may need to restart your Power BI Desktop to allow them to enable.

Looking at the above image, some of you may ask “Soheil, are you using an older version of Power BI Desktop?” and I am glad you asked. The answer as always is “It depends”. And, this time it depends on the timing of writing this blog which is early December 2023, and the fact that Power BI Desktop November 2023 was released a couple of weeks ago, therefore, Power BI Desktop October 2023 is kind of OLD! And, YES! I installed Power BI Desktop Nov 2023 for the sake of writing this blogpost.

Continue reading “Quick Tips: Find Power BI Desktop Local Port Number with Model Explorer” →
Business Intelligence - BI, Power BI, Power BI Desktop

Four Different Ways to Find Your Power BI Desktop Local Port Number

Power BI Desktop Local Port

Update December 2023:

From the October 2023 release of Power BI Desktop onwards, there is a 5’th method to find the port number within the Power BI Desktop itself. This method is explained here.

About two years ago I wrote a blog post on how to connect to a Power BI Desktop model from different tools like SSMS, Excel, and SQL Server Profiler. A big chunk of that blog post was about different ways of finding Power BI Desktop local port. Having the port number is crucial if you want to connect to a Power BI Desktop model from any sort of tool for different purposes like monitoring in SQL Server Profiler or analysing the model in Excel. I’ve been asked several times here and there about different reasons people need to find the Power BI Desktop local port number, so I decided to dedicate a post to the Power BI Desktop local port number.

When you run Power BI Desktop, it runs a local instance of SSAS Tabular model in the background and it assigns a random port number to that local instance. Therefore, if you want to connect to the model to analyse it in Excel you need to know that port number. There are several ways to achieve the port number and this post will cover most of them.

As you may know, Power BI Desktop is now available as a Windows App that can be installed from Windows Store. In general, the main difference between the App and the downloaded edition from the Microsoft website is that you will get a notification whenever a newer version is available to download. Then you have to manually download and install the newer version on your machine, but, the App will be updated automatically. However, some other differences are out of the scope of this article. There is just one difference that is relevant to this article which is that Power BI Desktop creates its temporary folders in a different location than the Power BI Desktop App does.

The methods described in this post work for both the downloaded edition and the Store edition.

Different Methods to Find Power BI Desktop Local Port

· Using DAX Studio

· Tabular Editor

· Power BI Desktop Temporary Location

· Command Line (CMD)

The reason that I explain different methods is that not all methods are doable in all environments. You may work at a customer site that doesn’t allow you to install new software like DAX Studio on their machines. But you always have access on Power BI Desktop temporary files.

Continue reading “Four Different Ways to Find Your Power BI Desktop Local Port Number” →