Thanks @BrianJ and @JarrettM … I thought I’d download the latest versions of DAX Studio and Tabular Editor and installed them, then saw your replies … all good now and visible. Sorry for the trouble.
All,
@JarrettM is correct that you have to turn on the enhanced metadata format option in preview. Given Imke Feldmann’s serious warnings about this option, I was pretty nervous clicking on it, but couldn’t resist given the lure of the new External Tools capabilities. However, before I did it I made sure all my important Power BI reports were backed up to the cloud, since once you turn this option on the changes that it makes to the reports you open are irreversible.
- Brian
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I agree on the concerns - and am wishing that Microsoft had made it possible for you to have this feature on for select workbooks, instead of as a Global feature.
Perhaps they will do that before it is in General Release.
Or even better, make it so that it doesn’t blow up ANY of your files. 
And perhaps they have - Imke’s blog entry on this is not been updated since May 12, and a lot of very smart, knowledgeable people (many of them Microsoft MVPs who get advance access to these features) haven’t raised this issue at all within their videos or blogs, so perhaps it is fixed. But until I hear that conclusively, I thought better to be safe than sorry…
- Brian
Always better to be safe - and particularly in a year that has been as messed up as 2020…
But I agree, it would be better if it just worked. I honestly haven’t used Dax Studio or Tabular Editor very much beyond the occasional measure/file investigation when things get slow. So I’m looking forward to learning more about these tools.
All,
After my initial giddiness subsided, I realized that the bus dropped us off one stop short of utopia. Tabular Editor currently does not include IntelliSense, although the developer did indicate that feature is currently on his list of future enhancements and capabilities to add.
– Brian
@Heather, @marcster_uk, et al.,
Thanks to @JarrettM for sending me this. Pretty strong indication that Microsoft has fixed the metadata format bugs discussed above:
- Brian
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Here is a nice source that I picked up today on Tabular Editor.
Enjoy
Jarrett
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@BrianJ okay - I’m sold, I have now turned on the “Store dataset using enhanced metadata format” option, and used Tabular Editor to save me at least half a day (if not more) worth of work.
The other day we had a power outage while i was working on a new model, and PowerBi shut down on me without giving me time to save anything. I wasn’t too worried, normally I’m able to restart the program and work from the retrieved copy that wasn’t saved. But this time, something happened to muck up the data model - and I could not get the data to refresh (kept erroring out in different ways).
So, I opened the last saved version, which had the data model correct, but none of my measures. Then I found a blog post from ExceleratorBI (there are probably dozens of others), talking about copying measures from one model to another using Tabular editor launched in the desktop.
I’m a believer now - just need to learn more that I can do with Tabular.
58 measures copied in less than 5 minutes, even the display folders I was using!
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That’s awesome – I saw that article from Matt Allington yesterday, but hadn’t tried it yet. I am totally sold on Tabular Editor but I do miss IntelliSense. According to Daniel, he’s working on incorporating that now and it’s the second item listed on his development roadmap:
-Brian
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Tabular Editor Version 3… it’s coming, with new features…
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Tabular Editor 3 is not yet released, but you can sign up for the preview
Tabular Editor 3 will be a commercial product
This is what I wrote back in July 2020 after the External Tools menu was introduced and I started playing with Tabular Editor. Well, likely within the next few weeks as Tabular Editor 3 becomes publicly available, I’m happy to report that the bus now goes all the way to utopia. This is the DAX development environment we’ve all been waiting for, and much more. Not only is Intellisense now included, it’s a much better implementation of it than in PBI. Here’s my detailed preview of TE3, based on 3+ months of beta testing. And pairing it with Analyst Hub makes both tools even stronger. As I say in the video preview below, one day soon we are going to wake up and find that Power BI’s worst feature (the nearly featureless DAX editing environment) has suddenly become its best…
And here is a very interesting article today from SQLBi about the importance of external tools in the current Power BI development environment:
- Brian
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All,
Big news for TE fans - Microsoft releases v 1.1 of Best Practices Analyzer rule set.
Link to rule set JSON file and C# loading script:
- Brian
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All,
For those of you who have switched over to Tabular Editor 3 (and I highly recommend every intermediate and advanced Power BI user give it a free 30 day trial at tabulareditor.com. Note: I have no affiliation with Tabular Editor, I just think it’s awesome), here are some useful learning resources:
In addition, our own version of the Definitive Guide to DAX, @AntrikshSharma , will be developing an in-depth portal course on TE3 targeted for later this Summer.
Finally, @alexbadiu and I have been posting useful C# scripts for TE3 to the Analyst Hub (just search “Tabular” to find). My video above on TE3 scripting shows you how to make use of these script snippets.
Others, please add to this thread as you find additional useful training resources.
Thanks.
- Brian
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TE3 Fans,
In my video above on scripting, I’m kicking myself that I forgot to show you one of the most useful TE3 scripts.
If you load the code below into a new TE3 script, with three clicks you can automatically format every single measure in your report (!!!). I’ve done it in reports with over 100 measures and it’s still nearly instantaneous.
No reason now to ever look at another unformatted DAX measure.
- Brian
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Hi,
Thanks for the video. It is very helpful. I am having an issue with formatting:
Format String Expression is not working when I try to set it. Showing me the following error.
So, instead I added FORMAT() function in the calculation item code to make it work. Is there a way to resolve this issue.
i think i would delete this posting has you created a new posting for it.
thanks
Keith
Ya sure Keith. I created a new post.