When data are embedded into saved Power BI report

Question

When data are embedded into Power BI Desktop saved or shared report?

As far as I understand, PBI Import Mode will always embed all input tables data into saved or shared .pbix report. Am I right?

Suppose you have table A, and than based on it Aggregation Table B. What data would be saved to report if I report depended on table B?

Does PBI save any data with saved/shared report in DirectQuery mode?

Answer 1

As far as I understand, PBI Import Mode will always embed all input tables data into saved or shared .pbix report. Am I right?

Yes, import mode copies the data from the source into the pbix file.

Does PBI save any data with saved/shared report in Direct Query mode?

No, with direct query mode it only stores the connection details. If you create a new DAX calculated table based on the main Direct Query, it is evaluated and loaded into memory when the file is opened, so it only saves the query that generates the table, not the data in the table.

What you can do is change the pbix file extension to .zip and have a look inside the file for data and whats saved in the file

Hope that helps

Answer 2

When data are embedded into Power BI Desktop saved or shared report?

Data is saved in the model when dataset mode is Import or Composite aka Dual (ie both Import and DirectQuery ). For more information see Dataset modes in the Power BI service and Manage storage mode in Power BI Desktop .

As far as I understand, PBI Import Mode will always embed all input tables data into saved or shared .pbix report. Am I right?

Yes, the imported data (if any) is always in the .pbix file. When published, it is split into separate report and dataset.

Suppose you have table A, and than based on it Aggregation Table B. What data would be saved to report if I report depended on table B?

It depends. There are options to reference or duplicate table. Also take a look at Use aggregations in Power BI Desktop .

Does PBI save any data with saved/shared report in DirectQuery mode?

No, in DirectQuery data is not imported, as noted in the documentation :

DirectQuery mode is an alternative to Import mode. Models developed in DirectQuery mode don't import data.

In this case queries are sent directly to the data source. There is some temporary caching though.