Power BI Source Control

Question: How to put Power BI files under source control?

Workaround: Power BI Desktop does not currently support source control and it doesn’t have an Excel-like extensibility mechanism to let developers take from where Microsoft left off.

However, thanks to the enhanced dataset metadata (currently in preview), you can implement a rudimentary source control policy while waiting for third parties to fill in the void by using these steps:

1. In Power BI Desktop, go to File, Options and settings, Options. In the “Preview features” tab, check “Store datasets using enhanced metadata format” if this feature is still in preview. Restart Power BI Desktop when asked.
2. In Power BI Desktop, go to File, Save As and save the file as a Power BI Template (*.pbit) file. This removes the imported data which you don’t need for source control and keeps the file small.
3. If you want to put all artifacts (reports, queries, data model) under source control, upload the entire file to your source control provider. However, if you want to compare and restore the model schema, you have more work left.
4. In Windows Explorer, right-click the pbit file and extract its content using your favorite extractor, such as 7-Zip. If this doesn’t work, rename the file extension to *.zip (Power BI files are saved as archive zip files) and extract.
5. The DataModelSchema file stores the model schema. I recommend you version control it separately so you can easily compare what changes have been made to the model (DataModelSchema is described in the same JSON schema as Analysis Services Tabular).
6. If you want to restore to a previous version of the schema or make changes, simply change the DataModelSchema file, zip the content back to a *.pbit file.

Other options to get to the model schema:

1. Use Tabular Editor which can open *.pbit files.
2. Use SSMS to connect to the running instance of Power BI Desktop (you can use the DAX Studio to obtain the port the AS instance is listening on) and then script the database as CREATE.