April 2021

Power BI release management

with Deployment Pipelines
Asanka Padmakumara

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Thanks to our sponsors

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Speaker info
Asanka Padmakumara
Senior Business Intelligence Consultant

• More than 10 years in BI and Data

Warehousing
• Regular speaker at data-related
events
• Blog: asankap.wordpress.com
• Linked In: linkedin.com/in/
asankapadmakumara
• Twitter: @asanka_e

April 2021
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Agenda
• Deployment Scenario
• Problems
• The Solution – Power BI Deployment Pipelines
• Demo
• Best Practices
• Current Limitations
• Q&A

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The Scenario

Dev Source System Test Source System Prod Source System

Dev Workspace Test Workspace Prod Workspace

Sam
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Steps to follow

Open each report

Open each model
Deploy each model and change Deploy each reports
Copy models and reports to and edit connection
to Test/Prod connection to to Test/Prod
different folders, test and prod strings and refresh in
workspaces. deployed model in workspaces
local PC
service.

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Issues in the approach

• Maintaining multiple copies of reports
• Amount of time to make a release
• Effort to make a release
• Difficult with Large data model
• Need to refresh in each source connection changes
• Need to deploy to service in each connection changes
• User errors due to manual works

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The Solution
• Power BI Deployment Pipelines
• Introduced to manage deployment of
organisational content between
multiple environment
• Preview in 2020-May
• GA in 2020-Sep
• Supports Development, Test and
Production Workspaces

April 2021
Power BI Deployment Pipelines April 2021

Dev Source System Test Source System Prod Source System

Rules Rules

Dev Workspace Prod Workspace

Test Workspace

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Deployment Rules
• Allows to change Parameters and Data Source connection information
when moving between environments
• Two types of rules
• Data Source Rules
• Parameter Rules
• Not all data sources support data source rules
• Use Parameter Rules when not supported

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Demo Time!

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Best Practices
• Use parameters in your model to store connection details
• Separate models and reports
• Use parameters to control data volume in Dev
• Use workspace permission to control who can deploy to Prod
• Don’t download Prod/Test PBIX files for quick fixes

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Limitations
• Only available in Premium, Premium per user and Embedded
• Can not used with
• Template app workspaces
• Paginated reports
• Dataflows
• PUSH datasets
• Only one workspace for a pipeline, rest are created automatically
• Not copied
• Role assignment
• Refresh schedule
• Data source credentials
• Sensitivity labels are not supported
• No version controlling
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Resources to study more

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/deployme
nt-pipelines-get-started
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/
deployment-pipelines-best-practices

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Thank you
• Connect to me at:
• Blog: asankap.wordpress.com
• Linked In: linkedin.com/in/asankapadmakumara
• Twitter: @asanka_e

• Stay online for my live Q&A sessions

April 2021