Report development can be a long and winding process. Following best practices is important; without standardization you run the risk of poor business insights, budgeting issues, or even violating data privacy laws. Generally, a report should make it through development and testing environments before hitting the big leagues in production. That can take a lot of time and requires a lot of moving parts. Fortunately, Power BI and Fabric utilize parameters to streamline your reporting process across workspaces cleanly and effectively.
Housing your data in Lakehouses or Warehouses within Fabric provides an easy route to setting up Power BI reports, but you will still need to utilize multiple connections to maintain your governance. Holding onto 3 separate versions of the same report can be a source control nightmare. To avoid this hassle, we can turn to parameters within Power Query. Parameters enable dynamic value adjustment in all facets of your report, from visuals to source connections. While they have incredible value for creating visuals that can change with the end user at the drop of a hat, this article will be focused on their use for standardization across workspaces.
In the top ribbon of Power Query, you can click on ‘Manage Parameters’ to enter the mini-menu for Parameters. From here, you can edit your existing parameters or create new ones. In the case of your report existing across multiple workspaces, there are a few key parameters we will be using:
These values can be set to many different data types, but in this case, we are using Text. This enables us to substitute pieces of the Power Query in and out depending on what environment or context we need. Once we set up the parameters, we can edit the Query Settings at the Source level to swap the base connection it looks for. Instead of a hard-coded connection string, we can now use the Parameter that was just defined. Now, instead of rebuilding objects or duplicating reports, you can use the parameter toggle to swap the connection quickly.
It is important to make sure the structure of your various parameterized sources are identical, at least for the tables or columns you are referencing. Power Query steps after the source will still remain the same, referencing those tables or columns needed for your report. The query itself will fail if it cannot find those values. Additionally, it is important to make sure the credentials attached to the report work across each source, otherwise this can result in a query failure as well.
Now that you have set up parameters in Power BI and attached them to your data queries, you can easily change the source for your report with little to no development effort! Once published up to Fabric, you can use deployment pipelines to move the report up through your environments while maintaining standard structure and visuals. When deployed to a new environment, you can access the Semantic Model settings in a given environment and go to ‘Parameters’ to change them in the service. After a report refresh, your parameters will populate the model with updated data according to the environment you selected. Future deployments across environments should still follow the standard path to maintain consistency (Dev → Test → Prod) and promote source control best practices.
Maintaining your data estate at the highest level can be a juggling act; many pieces need to be aligned to ensure data integrity and compliance. By using parameters within Power Query, you can ensure your reports are well-defined and standardized. If you have questions on how best to maximize the value from your Power BI reports or what actions you can take to optimize your Fabric data estate, we are happy to help!
For more about how Spyglass MTG can help your team get the most from Power BI Reporting, contact us today.