Power BI relationships behind the scenes with SQL Server

Question

I am using import mode with SQL Server on-premises and bringing in all required tables and create relationships. Does the indexing the columns involved in building relationship in PBI have any benefit in terms of report or data refresh performance? What happens behind the scenes in PBI?

Answer 1

In the import mode, data is read from the background SQL Server database and loaded into cache.

So, the indexes in datasource will give very good read performance. So, data refresh times will be faster. Read more on indexing for performance in PowerBI

But, the indexes will not be used, when you are working with report in the Power BI, as data is brought from cache(dataset). Dataset is holding the refreshed data and is being used in the reports.

Refer to below data refresh reference for PowerBI

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