PowerBI Reverse engineering

Hello fellow Power BI User,
How do I extract information which would contain Data model,table relationship and DAX formula from a PBIX file for documentation purpose.

Thanks

@Egbejiogu,

I use Ken Pul’s Monkey Tools app to do all these things. I really like it, and feel it does a better job on these particular tasks than anything else I’ve seen. It’s a paid app, but they have a full-featured trial version that you can test for a limited time period.

In terms of free tools, Reza Rad has an app called Power BI Helper, and you can also get DAX Studio to do some of this (e.g. export list of measures)

I’ve tried them all (along with another called Data Vizioneer), but I like Monkey Tools the best in terms of capability, interface, and ease of use. I recommend you give it a try for free and see what you think.

  • Brian

Thanks @BrianJ
I will take a look at all tools you have mentioned and see which one works better for me.
I appreciate your quick response.

Thanks

@Egbejiogu,

Great - I’ll be interested to hear what you decide.

  • Brian

HEY @BrianJ
It looks good but from my understanding, you have to extract the PBIX file to Excel before you perform the tasks?please Correct me if am wrong.
But Pls, Is there any other way to perform the tasks aside using a tool ?
Because of cyber security reason, am not allowed to use any tool to perform the task DAX studio inclusive.
Looking forward to your reply.
Thanks in advance

@Egbejiogu,

Yes, Monkey Tools does require that you connect Excel with the Monkey Tools add-in to the Power BI data model, so I guess that’s a nonstarter for you.

Without an external tool, the best I can think to do is to screenshot the summary Manage Relationships screen, and then the individual screens for each relationship to document cardinality, directionality and active/inactive, per the screenshots below.

A similar screenshot could be taken of the data model view to show the table/field structures.

The most difficult one would be extracting measures from the PBIX file. I can’t think of way to do that other than manual cut-and-paste to an external file, without using a separate tool.

Perhaps someone else on the forum has an idea on how to do that in an automated way natively within Power BI.

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful. Power BI has really limited documentation capabilities built in, which is why so many external tools exist to fill this gap.

  • Brian
1 Like

Hi @Egbejiogu, did the response provided by @BrianJ help you solve your query? If not, how far did you get, and what kind of help you need further? If yes, kindly mark the thread as solved. Thanks!

Thanks @BrianJ
Your idea seem nice and would be very helpful but how about querying the pbix file through SSMS?

You can connect to a .pbix with SSMS. You just need to know the Server Name, and select Analysis Services in the Server Type connection Dialog. Quick way to find the server name is to use DAX Studio. Something like localhost:nnnnnn. You’ll find it at the bottom right in DAX Studio after connecting. You can then use DAX or MDX to query the data.

1 Like

Or:

Thanks @marcster_uk
I believe this will be helpful as well. for the tool, it looks great but i.m not allowed to use external tool DAX studio inclusive…lol
Thank @BrianJ