Options for Source Control – Ep. 204

Power BI teams are getting pulled into more ‘software-like’ expectations: repeatable releases, peer review, and the ability to answer the question “what changed?” before you hit Deploy. In Episode 204, the crew uses that lens to unpack practical source control options today—and why newer building blocks like TMDL and deployment pipeline change review are such a meaningful step forward.

News & Announcements

• Announcing public preview of the Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) — TMDL introduces a more human-readable definition format for tabular models, which makes review and collaboration dramatically easier than opaque/binary model artifacts. If you’ve wanted “Git-style” workflows for semantic models, this is one of the foundational pieces.

• Now on Deployment Pipelines: View item’s code changes before deploying it — Change review adds a pre-deploy diff experience to deployment pipelines so you can inspect what’s actually changing (highlighted lines) before moving between environments. It won’t replace full ALM tooling yet, but it’s a practical safety net for teams shipping frequently.

Main Discussion

Source control is less about the tool (Git/Azure DevOps/etc.) and more about the outcomes: a clear history of changes, the ability to review diffs, and a workflow that lets multiple people contribute without breaking production.

• Treat deployments as a process, not a button: when the same person builds and deploys everything, it works—until it doesn’t. Rigor (and separation of duties) tends to show up right after the first painful incident.

• Power BI’s hardest constraint is still the artifact shape: a single PBIX that bundles the semantic model and the report makes parallel work and clean diffs inherently awkward.

• Getting to “reviewable diffs” is the first unlock. Once you can see measures/columns/metadata changes side-by-side, you can make better decisions about what ships and when.

• TMDL (and other more readable model definitions) matters because format drives workflow: when the model becomes text-like, it becomes reviewable, mergeable, and automatable.

• Consider separating concerns where possible (semantic model vs. thin reports). The more you can isolate model changes from visual/report changes, the more realistic true source control becomes.

• Expect the Power BI ecosystem to keep moving toward CI/CD patterns (pipelines, comparisons, diff tooling, VS Code integrations). Even if you’re not “a developer,” the release mechanics are trending that direction.

• Hiring and team composition will shift: data modelers in particular are going to be expected to understand source control basics because they’re the ones changing the semantic contract everyone depends on.

Looking Forward

Pick one artifact you can make more reviewable this month (a dataset model, a thin report, or a pipeline stage) and add a lightweight “diff + approval” step before production releases.

Episode Transcript

0:31 good morning everyone welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike hello everybody hey guys hey hi hi welcome to welcome to another day of the week Tuesday Tuesday excellent excellent so when you do spring cleaning and for for those are audio I apologize you find some old artifacts this is a normal phone right okay yeah it’s Tommy’s showing his look at the old phones back in the day Tommy’s showing his his his new

1:01 Tommy’s showing his his his new iPhone the big one the big iPhone this is the normal iPhone a normal iPhone and then you found what is like an iPhone like three this is the iPhone 15 coming out they’re going smaller so the difference in size is incredible that’s incredible Yeah in our in our move this last year I found an old flip phone oh flip phone wow yeah yeah yeah do you guys ever have a BlackBerry yeah I totally did it yeah I found wait those were in my like oh I actually

1:33 those were in my like oh I actually found one of those too I found in a bin way back in my room somewhere there was like a it wasn’t a Blackberry it was like the Windows phone like it the version of a Blackberry or it had like a Windows operating system on it stuff but it had like a text keyboard they got all the keys for all the different letters so the kids found this I’m like what’s this and I’m like well you can play with it now because it doesn’t do anything so they called an artifact it’s an artifact yes it’s a relic from an old time pass and the word of the day is Snuffleupagus

2:04 and the word of the day is Snuffleupagus Blackberry can you say BlackBerry anyways so that was fun they’ve been running around the house with the phones these old old phones and and thinking they’re fun and they’re calling each other and I’m texting you I was I was I was interjecting with the comment that the chat comments where folks were giving us a hard time for being recorded all the time so Mr our favorite Mr Gregory B snuffle up against the user there we go

2:35 snuffle up against the user there we go it is it is a real time we are really here for once people have been traveling it’s been hard to record when people keep moving all over the place more more travel in the future so so sorry about that you guys are getting free content so at least we’re consistent yeah like we could just say okay we’ll see you around three in a month yeah or whatever

3:08 we should do anyway I’m still all for we should do a live podcast episode like in person yeah we should do a live one I know right now yeah almost like mean I know right now yeah almost like we would get up at 7 30 a. m Central and and talk to each other live wait okay maybe I need a phrase that differently I maybe I need a phrase that differently you mean like all of us in the same mean you mean like all of us in the same room yeah like rent out like a bar or something or a I think you just show up and there’s no one there yeah except when you travel internationally you go to the bar

3:38 internationally you go to the bar everyone’s at the bar International you travel especially Dublin especially Dublin as Tommy has learned on his recent trip they don’t care what time it is is 24 7 bars yeah exactly [Music] I always like I found my people I found my people so what’s what’s in the news today gentlemen there’s some good stuff coming out so good stuff I guess announced on the 10th or actually let’s go with the tenth like the announce on the 10th by

4:10 tenth like the announce on the 10th by lee Benjamin senior program manager is a new now deploying deployment pipelines View and items code changes before deploying it I think this is gonna this is this is a step down the right path here so if you read through the article it starts showing you this let’s call it Alm toolkit so for those who don’t know Alm toolkit isn’t what is it is it how is the acronym Alm live cycle lifecycle management application

4:40 lifecycle management application lifecycle management is it application Alm application lifecycle management so an Alm toolkit for power bi made by Christian Wade has this program where you can say select a model an old one and select a new one and it literally shows you the Bim line by line and says oh by the way line number five has changed it was this and is now this or you deleted this section of stuff so it does a really good job of like analyzing what was occurring inside your data model well now in deployment pipelines you’re now

5:12 now in deployment pipelines you’re now able to do the same thing you can view the code changes you you can see the same pain of view changes right like let’s let’s be cautious about you can do the same things that Alm can it’s not entirely accurate yet right we’re just you can see the code changes yeah I think so and I and I think just being able to observe them and note exactly what’s occurring

5:43 them and note exactly what’s occurring so this has been all the time when you deploy anything inside anywhere in power bi. com how do I know it’s changing I don’t know I have no clue and I kept saying it’d be really great if you could just see a diff of just what you changed and what’s coming through the pipeline so you at least can say Ah that’s not right now right now it’s gonna just let you see what changed it’s not going to let you go back in and like modify tweak or adjust or make changes to the code but I could very much see on a roadmap if they’re already showing you what’s changing on a line by

6:13 showing you what’s changing on a line by line basis I could very much see in the future that you’d be able to then edit that slightly or tweak it a little bit further yeah powerful at SQL bits when they announced it they said there’ll be a vs code extension to do just that yes oh I will I will put this in the chat window already it’s this feature is already out so I’ll put it in the chat over here in the service it’s already and it says it’s all available today you can go look at it right about now so this is the article here

6:43 so this is the article here and then I’ll just jump over here to LinkedIn for our LinkedIn followers and they can also see the article as well so this is just announced I think it was yesterday the 10th is when it was announced announced but this is this is hot off the press just brand new and lean makes a note here that says so you’re towards the end here the Change review is already available today in deployment pipelines so give it a try and there’s actually some more technical documentation that goes a little bit more around comparing and doing the diffs as well so there’s also here we go so it’s I’ve also put in the

7:14 here we go so it’s I’ve also put in the other article out there as well and it looks like some people are not seeing their tenant yet so it does take a day or two for things to get rolled out to all tenants I believe the blog articles are supposed to come out after it’s been rolled out to all tenants so maybe they’re a little bit slow not sure but I’ll also put these two comments in here as well for people who are interested in looking at this the article I would highly recommend reading it this is going to be very impactful I think in general for people working on reports and deploying things so I’ll put it over here at LinkedIn any

7:44 so I’ll put it over here at LinkedIn any other thoughts guys not on that one what about the more exciting topic or announcement it’s another good one this is you guys you guys were there there at the beginning there at the announcement so I’m not taking this one it was it was a thing I honestly I was really excited I knew I knew there was an announcement coming what are we talking about exactly about what it was but it’s this new thing called the timdel tmdl is is how you

8:16 called the timdel tmdl is is how you would say it and it sounds like the internal language of how that’s being communicated about is is the Tim dual is what it’s being used as so rui Romano nice job rui great release on Tyndall very very excited about this one so rui principal program manager for power bi has has if you look at the tablet object model the Tom there’s a lot of parameter settings variables in there it’s typically in a Json format and we know how people love to work in Json well yeah very verbose very much oh no

8:47 well yeah very verbose very much oh no one loves it and this is hence hence why we have a theme generator because people don’t like working in Json well the Tyndall is a yaml-like language so it’s a yaml is yet another markdown language is what yaml stands for but it’s a more human readable language that you can use to then generate a standard respect it’s it’s almost you could you can translate yaml into Json and back out of it but yaml basically is a easier to read format for your settings

9:18 format for your settings so what this is there’s actually a huge it’s being developed by the community so Matthias therbach has been developing this and working with at the community portion of this with directly with Microsoft and rui who have really outputted this new language it’s a brand new language it’s going to be a vs code extension you’re going to be able to use it natively working in your data models yeah it’s it’s Donald you’re to your point there it’s like working with XML but way not way better to read than XML

9:50 but way not way better to read than XML so yes but not frustrated it’s like XML but way better so no but it’s it’s another language here and so this is this is going to be coming in integrated in all of Microsoft’s tooling so in the article here it talks about Tyndall will

10:05 article here it talks about Tyndall will be integrated with a tabular editor it’ll be integrated with Alm toolkit it’ll be integrated in RBI desktop trying to see if for I’m trying to read all the items here real quick please make sure you get the cap share yeah PBI tools will have it time your editor Alm toolkit and it’ll be supported by the community so it’s a community-based project you can go experiment with features you can go play with it and and talks a lot about PBI tools and how it solves a long-standing problem in the power bi development Community right talking about how do you

10:36 Community right talking about how do you put objects or if power bi into Source control and PBA tools really solves a lot of those challenges [Music] [Music] well the big difference is there was a language before but again it was in Json so for anyone trying to develop on it was unusable as Tisdale tdsl yeah right and that was all Json but again because of the lack of human readability or you of the lack of human readability or human interaction with it so to know human interaction with it so to speak business and Json trying to edit an item was nearly impossible or

11:07 an item was nearly impossible or something that wasn’t worth the time yeah I would say like editing simple things like connection strings or like a line of code that you would you’d be able to identify but like creating something or modifying large spot yeah exactly not gonna happen and so yeah there’s a lot of things that were like heard of this before exactly why to do it and and there’s also and I’m gonna selfishly here as well

11:37 selfishly here as well I have also created an ideas at idea. powerview. com so everything we’re talking about for for Tyndall is all around the data model and data models are a lot more regulated right there’s a spec there’s a there’s a known quantity it it iterates and it’s designed in a way that has a very standard specification around the model but selfishly enough there’s not an equivalent version of a Tyndall for the report side right so the report is not this easy to read language around that as well so

12:08 as well so I’ll put the link here as well I made an idea that said hey if we have Tyndall for the model why not get Tindle for the report so was that ribdal report model riddle or report data model or something like that so so I think there needs to be another language another version of this and so let me grab a link for that one as well so if you’re listening to this if you like this idea of Kindle and being able to read and edit things easily here’s

12:38 read and edit things easily here’s the link for ideas for a report side as well and go ahead and vote on this so Microsoft watches this and they are if we get enough votes on this we can actually start letting Microsoft know that we’re interested in this idea this idea so I put the link in there so we’ll go out and vote for another version of this that we actually go into the report sign sign anyways other thoughts around this one that a chat’s like all over the board on this one yeah great Gregory’s just pointing out that the the

13:08 just pointing out that the the XML and Json formats are designed to be human readable and he’s correct but we’re just saying for humans more human readable more editable yes well even even doing diffs right some of us are more challenged at reading Greggy right yeah it’s exactly not all of us speaks robot all the time yeah

13:42 I can read Json pretty well now but it’s taken me quite a learning curve again if we’re thinking about like this you’re never ever thinking about like making things for report Builders or a report of the business users in general right they’re not going to be adversed in programming language they’re not going to be as used as comfortable is using Json so that’s why I think a lot of this is coming with this simpler easier to use language well the the big the big difference here compared to why is the what are we talking about Json and yaml and why is the big difference in Json everything’s quotation based so

14:14 in Json everything’s quotation based so if you’re trying to do a measure with quotations good luck trying to do that efficiently yaml doesn’t have that conflict which is just that alone is a huge hurdle that is now a solid for so it’s going to make it easy to edit multiple measures where you don’t have to worry about do I need to escape a character here okay is that all escaped it’s easy to do and from a user point of view even if you’re not a like in the developer mode or have ever worked with the ammo is something that you can easily pick up too

14:45 you can easily pick up too and also what I’ll also do in the article as well to your point Tommy there if you are more curious about what this is doing and want to see more information about what is Tyndall there’s actually a YouTube video of Matthias and Gabby going through like a detail of okay here’s what it is here’s how it’s working here’s what it’s going to give you here’s the advantages of it and here’s some real code examples of what you can do with it and to your point Tommy right there’s quotes there’s weird formatting things in some cases around power bi there’s like text Json that is stored as text

15:17 like text Json that is stored as text inside an object inside like just weird stuff so what what Tyndall is aiming to do is to simplify a lot more of that and just make it much easier to use the syntax is much simpler when you do it to the X formula the Spate like so in in yaml typical yaml format your your spacing is very important right so that the number of tabs you use is critical to getting the formatting correct however but Matthias has done on measures and to your point time if you said around like

15:47 your point time if you said around like the M code and Json the M code in the in the Dax you can then take Dax and M and you can change the formatting so it makes sense and that way it reformats it correctly for what it needs to be inside the tool so even though you’re using this Tyndall format it actually allows you some more flexibility and formatting for Dax and M code which is again very helpful right so so these are major announcements for the year I think this will be one of the things we look back on 2023 that will be

16:19 things we look back on 2023 that will be in our top five what will be in our top five Tyndall oh yeah this is gonna when I when I heard about this I thought this is changing how we’re going to develop things like this is fundamentally different and you need to learn about this yeah mainly for the the big Enterprise folks like League models where we’re already interacting with the model on the back end for the most part I don’t you don’t well I would say from an efficiency point of view because you could the ability to

16:51 view because you could the ability to edit a model within the like in the process even if you’re not Enterprise this still makes sense I’m not saying for every use case but this absolutely does make sense regardless if you’re Enterprise or not were you saying something maybe I missed your point there the teams who are going to be using it Tyndall yeah well okay so if I if I think Forward Thinking here for a second wouldn’t it make sense again if so if Tim does just more easy to read format if you again if you watch

17:21 if you again if you watch the the video from YouTube it’s very easy to call up measures and columns okay if we now pair that with what I’m seeing in the deployment pipelines where I have this nice clean side by side okay here’s the list of measures here’s the list of columns and I can then one off I think one of the challenges that this is addressing is doing those diffs right being able to see side by side I think it’s actually tyndall’s actually easier to do a source control changes on items and and you also listen there what

17:52 and and you also listen there what Matthias is talking about Matthias also demos the ability to add comments to tables in a super easy format so like you you literally can create a column you put three backslashes in front of the word column and then write out the description and it supports multi-line formatting so if you want multiple lines like a carriage return on each one of them you just start a new line so in general like the language of writing it is very intuitive it almost feels like marked down to some degree yeah and this will have a via this is the one that will have the vs code extension

18:22 will have the vs code extension foreign foreign yes and there’s already I believe already a GitHub project yeah out there you get to dig around for it there’s already a GitHub project from Microsoft for timdel the details are starting to come out so I think anyways I’m super excited about this this is a Monumental shift from Microsoft because everything at this point has been very like developer-centric I feel that this is opening up the developer walls a bit more more to Common users so I feel this is a great book yeah

18:52 so I feel this is a great book yeah anyways I think this also dovetails very well into our conversation for today so this was completely unplanned oh completely unplanned oh so unplanned yeah how how look the day the blog was announced we’re already talking about the exact topic of that thing I just for the users not that you believe me but we added this to the card on March 21st for our episode so I’m looking at it just happened to coincide with the day really really good job I’m glad you you looked at our Trello board

19:24 glad you you looked at our Trello board and was able to release your blog article we did the same time with API for our top four totally unplanned but very very good timing so timdo coming out and the announcement of this the video is coming out for Matt as well now we can start talking about okay what is Source control what does this look like and I think this will be a good topic because this now influences how we think about and build Source control for power bi things so let’s jump in let’s do a brief

19:54 so let’s jump in let’s do a brief history of source control what are you guys aware of how do you understand Source control from your perspective how did you learn Source control let’s let’s start there maybe even a little bit how does that work for you how did I learn Source control yeah but what were your first projects around Source control

20:09 Source control projects or tools that we used either one obviously using using visual studio studio vsts Visual Studio team services and on-prem or in Cloud on-prem on-prem okay yeah it’s already from yeah from test to test environments to production right and go through the whole Litany of process and yep testing and all that stuff things have gotten a little more

20:39 things have gotten a little more loosey-goosey as the time goes on without the the restrictions right but you were doing those on like you were doing those on SQL Server stuff right that would be like SQL Server yeah so you were you were doing you’re pulling down code developing in visual studio and then you were deploying back to a branch where you automatically deploying from that Branch directly into the servers or were you going are you deploying we were we were back in the day yeah now the organization I work for has different teams yes to do

21:10 work for has different teams yes to do that advantage that manage the actual deployments right so you have you have devs sure Ops Team like pushing yeah pushing into the branches and then apps team manages all the coordination of pushing that code into different environments so I feel like what you just described there is a trend that happens in many companies right it starts with hey we’re doing this thing the guy who does the code generation also does the deployment right until that until that guy accidentally

21:42 that until that guy accidentally deployed something until something gets borked really bad right and then after that after something gets fouled up massively we say oh maybe we should have had a bit more rigor around this and you go find a person who’s doing the deployment process so now but you but but this is this is a growth thing though I think it’s like the person who builds it deploys it that’s like the initial step The Next Step Beyond that is okay we’re deploying so much things so many things I need someone developing it and I need to break out another role that is like a

22:12 break out another role that is like a release manager a release management team so we have like that’s like another team gets formed and their sole job is there’s so much to deploy now that they’re regularly pumping out test environments broad environments making sure things work they’re doing a lot of automated testing around that so that way it works regularly right yeah but at the same time like even like business intelligence teams in general have always just had their own slice right we’re we’re we weren’t Bound by a lot of the the same constraints

22:42 by a lot of the the same constraints related to data in different systems you related to data in different systems deploying code into an application know deploying code into an application like typically it was we you’re still managing that on your own I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that we have in today’s current state is that due to power bi having ultimate flexibility right there’s real challenges not being able to align directly into a source control infrastructure especially in

23:12 infrastructure especially in situations where you’re deeply embedding power bi reports within applications like this is the biggest use case for me that has been a challenge and not having good source control processes and capabilities around all aspects of the report right like without limitation and that’s been one of the biggest challenges because in these environments I would love nothing other than to just lock up these reports and the way they go out in this Cadence where everything

23:43 go out in this Cadence where everything is properly planned coordinated in in the process is there and that’s one of the things with that I don’t think well I think is taken for granted in general why you have devops like Ops teams to do this type of thing is because if you think about if you’ve ever had the ability like the experience whether it’s in databases like I myself right where you’re developing a whole bunch of changes in a test environment and you’re gonna go and deploy into production over a weekend right

24:15 a weekend right oh boy the better that checklist is that you have the more successful you will be this is not something that is just like oh we throw it in the air and like when it goes out it goes no like if you want to talk about rigor and like what you should have around like a repeatable consistent process that the business abides by that you have to deploy things in a certain method without interjecting changes at the last minute and all this stuff like these teams are kind

24:45 stuff like these teams are the Prime examples in organizations of the Prime examples in organizations of yeah of Hardcore processes and for a reason right because you don’t want to impact your customers negatively in any way shape or form and and ultimately like we it’s very easy to play the you like we it’s very easy to play the business intelligence internal like know business intelligence internal like we just deployed changes willy-nilly whenever we want to but it it falls apart in the other context where you’re using power bi reports as part of an application as part of a service to

25:15 application as part of a service to somebody where those mistakes as easy as they are to like fix and change most of the time they’re still they’re still avoidable a lot of them are very avoidable yeah so when I first got into a more individual contributor and it was terrifying like the idea of get into it oh yeah it was terrifying terrifying on if I had another Branch like where did my other stuff go yeah where’s the branch what branch am I on how do I switch branches Yeah I broke something why is it murdered I did so much work

25:46 why is it murdered I did so much work and now I thought God yeah the first time I had emerged conflict I was terrified I’m like I don’t want to touch this this place right place yeah but then obviously it was self-learning and now it’s more from a team point of view honestly used a lot with power apps because powerapps has had for over a year now Source control and get and it’s in the ammo language which is ironic shocking right right like shocker this is Microsoft’s clearly going this direction like if you look at all the

26:16 direction like if you look at all the things that they can do with like so the only thing they haven’t done really in yaml yet is like so you look at Azure devops yaml based deployment pipelines you look at the linguistic model and power bi BML you look at powerapps EML right timdel yaml like in nature right that’s that is the direction Microsoft has taken like they’re definitely going down this direction the only one that’s not there really yet is like the theme filing right the theme stuff is not not yaml it’s just Json I don’t think

26:46 not yaml it’s just Json I don’t think they’ll ever change that no because it’s just such a pain and you I remember the first time I had the idea of power bi and Source control was actually at like the Charlotte Power Platform World Tour in like 2018. it was or 2017 it wasn’t out yet but I was working with someone I met and we basically built the application in from the GitHub source and just tested it out because it wasn’t available yet and it was like the idea of that which testing it out was incredible the idea that you can

27:16 was incredible the idea that you can actually look at a file because before it was like SharePoint that was Source control with power bi and the version history but then to be able to actually see the differences that’s when you all obviously could see the potential of not just hey what changed I don’t know I know something did I just don’t know what so and actually say oh no it was actually these lines of Dax were changed not even just that measure this line was changed it’s like this has to be something to learn yeah I agree and I think

27:46 yeah I agree and I think I I so let me give so Seth you went through your inter first interaction with Git I’ve said Tommy you went through your next interaction of git and I’ve been I think very heavily from the business side of things so I had a very small interaction with a little bit of devops or or git branching that was from like devops repos online so that was minor I didn’t really spend a lot of time on TFS on-prem I was at the time when I started getting involved with a lot of this it was more focused on the the

28:17 this it was more focused on the the cloud side of things but I really thought this was great because I worked with teams that were doing a lot of the check-in checkout deployment pipeline pieces and we had like a a devops team that was literally that was their job we would build code and then they we would build everything in Dev okay dev’s ready to go we would then lift this over to another team and they would produce the next step to get through test run a whole bunch of tests everything everything checked out they would then go in to move it into production so there’s a specific team just doing releases releases but that was my first interaction and

28:48 but that was my first interaction and and then as I went out on my own doing consulting work and gigs work I’ve now done everything in git repos so I don’t like using word for documentation or Sal’s or writing statement of works I use markdown for everything I love markdown because it’s it can make a fairly good looking document literally if I can describe in a website or or thinking through like a project on GitHub right if I can go to a project on GitHub and I can talk in technical terms to other people using

29:18 technical terms to other people using markdown I had to be able to communicate between business users using the same language it’s very simple the syntax is easy to learn it’s yes it’s a little bit more Cody based than most people but I hate going into word and trying to figure out why does this table not format correctly why can’t I Center this dumb thing like I just don’t care to waste time formatting things I wanted to just I would rather have the document be longer and and and do a little bit less formatting and and and change how I’m writing the information so that’s easier to like

29:49 information so that’s easier to like inject it into code but that’s how I do everything now so all of my statement works all of my documentation for customers I’m checking in and them out out of a kit so I have git repos for all of my specific things and side note this is Michael’s like like ai’s taking over the world moment this is a side thought if you use so when I write my markdown I write all of my stuff inside Visual

30:13 write all of my stuff inside Visual Studio Studio and Studio code has chat GPT in it so now when I write that in copilot so now when I write stuff documentation or anything else because it looks at the entire repo when it’s looking at your code so anytime I use phrasing from another statement of work or anything else it’s actually picking up my language and filling out complete sentences for me as I write stuff and I’m like now I can just I can just start a thought and then I can present and

30:44 a thought and then I can present and then you can even now with with copilot you can actually there’s a command I don’t remember off top my head but you can key command it and you can see different versions of the same language it’s writing so you don’t get one solution you could have three or four or five different language pieces so hey the data warehouse is important because and then it fills out the rest of the sentence for you and then you use the shortcut command and then you have four different versions of what it’s saying and you can pick the one you want it’s incredible you converted me everything marked down and then that ability of

31:14 marked down and then that ability of just pressing down yeah so yeah it’s all checked in it gets and then the idea here too was I just need to learn get better so this was also if I just adopt it and say make it part of my workflow I will become better at using git I will be able to get I’ll be able to check out branches I’ll understand commits and then pushes to main a lot more easily so I think it’s great but this is a very lacking piece of like what’s happening inside the power bi ecosystem because you really can’t do that same level of effort with models and thin reports

31:46 effort with models and thin reports today right we don’t have that capability all the items we’ve talked about unless I think Seth had nothing to do with power bi or tabular models all the source control has yet to relate to this we’re talking about the history in our own history too because there has been relatively minimal feature sets or tool sets when when specifically you’re talking about building and developing within power bi itself bi itself right like because you could still

32:16 right like because you could still Source control your if you have a model analysis Services yeah right so like we’re talking within the context of creating building deploying within the context of power bi but can’t you even you can there’s like there’s like two parts I think you want to Source control right you want to Source control the model and then the the thin reports right and so I think the challenge becomes when you have the model and the thin report as the same file that’s when things get very difficult to Source control I think what

32:46 difficult to Source control I think what are your guys’s thoughts it’s all hard it’s all hard well and let me let me give you some more of my reasoning here right the reasoning behind this is if the model and the thin report are together it’s like a thick report it has the data model and the report together right if you are in an Enterprise environment you likely have premium at some level either premium per user or you’re doing premium as a paid service so with that if as a premium as a paid service you now have the xmla endpoint so the model is very well defined and

33:18 so the model is very well defined and you can build entire pipelines of I’m going to check in this code and it will then deploy using the xmla endpoint we can deploy code directly into models right so to me I feel like yes it’s not probably the easiest way of deploying things but you have the ability of making a regular process around deploying the model only with code with a check-in checkout mentality would you guys agree it’s a it’s a it’s an option but I don’t think there’s necessarily A streamed

33:49 think there’s necessarily A streamed line option because there’s a lot of different ways that we’ve done it like I know for us it’s not so much been around the gold and thin reports it’s been the use of SharePoint or the use of a OneDrive for version history yep yep yep and I think the reason I’m making this distinction is you can still use SharePoint for version history of those files but I’m thinking purely like if we’re saying let’s actually just straight up instead of so one of the demos of timdel which I think is really important here is Tyndall created a data set from scratch

34:21 Tyndall created a data set from scratch in the powerbi. com service so they were able oh yeah yeah the TS was able to to directly so one of the challenges today is if you have an excellent endpoint and you’re trying to modify your models today there is no method to create a data set in powerband. com with just code from nothing you have to deploy like a minimum a power bi file that goes to the service first it has to initially deploy the model once the model is there then you can create all the other assets and then you can modify it with code right so you you have to today start

34:53 right so you you have to today start with a pbix file that is the model but Tim Dole and what Matthias demoed in PBI tools was you don’t need that anymore PBA tools can bundle up this language this starting point create everything you need and publish in entire in its entirety directly to the service without having any model so one of one of our biggest gripes my biggest gripe with desktop right now is if I’m in desktop and I’m making a model only pbix file I can’t just deploy just the model I have to deploy the the model n a

35:24 model I have to deploy the the model n a thin report or a report that goes with it so you always get this my Enterprise data warehouse model and then there’s like my Enterprise data warehouse report so there’s always a blank report and I have a an image on the report page that says hey this report is made blank this is on purpose this is just the model don’t don’t use this for reporting well I agree but think about the amount of people who use tablet editor are familiar with it I think this is even a smaller subset of people who are going to use that deployment option like we’re

35:54 to use that deployment option like we’re that Tim Dole is still going to be very very small subset of users in power bi okay well let me ask you this are there gonna be more people using timdol or Tableau editor well so okay let’s let’s just let’s let’s distinguish some things here right I think there are different personas that are going to be using these different tools right so one Persona is I’m the person who’s going to go to power. com and consumer reports that is by far the largest audience you’re going to have using power bi just give me reports I don’t care about all the technology behind it that’s your

36:25 all the technology behind it that’s your biggest audience the next smaller audience is I’m going to build a report on top of someone else’s data model my argument there was like that’s another smaller population but they’re not going to use terminal either because they’re only focusing on building thin reports on top of existing models that are already developed now what I would argue is any of the data modelers who are doing data modeling on a report almost a hundred percent of them I would say a very large majority maybe not initially but eventually anyone who’s doing data model development will want

36:56 doing data model development will want to use Tyndall and the source control methods and if they’re not doing it today any Enterprise level data sets should also be thinking about and or trying to leverage and using this new world that is Tyndall right so to your point Tommy right are the majority of power bi users using Timber no they’re not but of the people who are actually developing models a large majority of them will want to use this new technology and when to use this check-in checkout methodology and Greg brings up a really good point

37:26 and Greg brings up a really good point the whole reason of source control is I can have Tommy working on a definition of table a and Seth can be working on table definition B and because those are two separate objects I can merge the changes together and then publish them at the same time so or or publish them independently in two different yeah because Tommy stuff sucks and it broke right like and not not let his changes go through yeah because right it’s it’s it’s primarily a fantastic resource for

37:57 primarily a fantastic resource for multiple people working on the same thing the same model at the same time deploying or report right deploying the different aspects of it within and allowing them to be merged together right yeah yeah as a side note to this also as well if today couldn’t get any better for everyone the April desktop is out I just downloaded it from the service oh my goodness so Tim does announced desktop for April is out this is like the best day ever day ever Since There goes my work there goes my

38:28 Since There goes my work there goes my work day this is like the only live episode you’ll need for like another month month is that good okay so let me ask a question that because I I agree with what you’re saying but is Tyndall and the source controlled in the context that we’re talking about here going to be more for Enterprise level teams only or more centralized or it’s going to be for individuals at all or for smaller teams do you want the Microsoft answer or do

38:59 do you want the Microsoft answer or do you want my answer your answer I’ll ask Microsoft okay so let me start with the Microsoft answer first Microsoft on the call well it’s true so Microsoft here so the reason the reason I’m saying I’m starting with the Microsoft answer is because everything comes with premium right so the Microsoft answer is if you’re on premium these features will be a help to you that’s where Microsoft seems to put out all these new fancy features all the bells and whistles come to premium first first that’s just what they do so I

39:30 that’s just what they do so I think what their their method here is to the madness is trying to push more people going towards that premium SKU to get these features now Tommy to your point so what’s my answer right right I think best practices or better let’s call it not better best practice let’s call better practices right better practices would be to figure out how to leverage this in your environment as well so well so what I don’t know is will there be specific features blocking

40:01 will there be specific features blocking this capability at the pro level of user because a lot of this hinges from my understanding a lot of this hinges on having the xmla endpoint exposed to you and because the XML endpoint is is the connection string into that powerbi. com

40:18 connection string into that powerbi. com service level I think that without having that at well if I don’t have any xmla endpoint exposed to the pro user I think you’re going to be limited and you will have to build things using pbax files and Publishing through desktop I don’t think you’re gonna be able to automate a lot yeah exactly yeah or or maybe you can do something a little tricky here where you’re You’re Building published things and maybe you’re using a couple apis with a service principle to push files around maybe or maybe there’s a series of apis that you can publish to desk to Dev and then maybe you can use

40:49 desk to Dev and then maybe you can use these apis to help you do like moving files around I I just don’t see it as being as smooth of an ex as an exercise as those who are already on premium so I would love to have it in Pro but realistically I think it’s only going to be a premium feature was there a question in there for me there was the same the same question is this more for an Enterprise level teams or is this can this work for smaller either individual or smaller centralized

41:20 either individual or smaller centralized any anything can work right but at the same time like the the use cases increases in value as you go into larger teams that are going to be concurrently working on a report or making more changes all at the same time right like and that’s where I think the the value prop of this being a premium feature where you’re adding that behind the license makes sense because it’s like already premium in and of itself is is extremely valuable for the for for

41:50 is extremely valuable for the for for what you’re you’re getting right and are there use cases where it’s like smaller organizations yeah absolutely right but I don’t play in those Realms so yeah selfish selfishly I’m there it’s fine so but yeah I would I would say it’s it’s more you’re you’re gonna you’re gonna you’re gonna purchase that value when you see like you’re buying a whole ecosystem and and to me in the premium license conversation

42:20 in the premium license conversation to me I think it’s a very easy one for an organization that’s even mid-size because it’s it it’s a matter of how you position it right all of the infrastructure that was independent servers and licenses and like all the hardware to support all these things and your interaction like power bi is so much more than just the the reports and if you can describe that and talk to talk to those aspects of things

42:51 talk to those aspects of things it goes a long way in making that a pretty easy conversation I’d agree with that as well yeah I think that goes a little into a question that I have and I’ve been thinking about especially since we saw the announcement of Tim gold well the majority of bi teams or should the majority bi developers be experienced in Source control and power bi within the next five years and I I’ve been considering

43:22 five years and I I’ve been considering this now I think it’s ever more prominent now with wolf announcements today myself I would say yes I would think that if you are power bi every day if you yeah which I would I would say that in the next five years I would expect that to be one of the skill sets of someone I would be interviewing that I would want my team what what yeah what do you mean by that though right like the source of our conversation today is how Brokenness is like you’re saying we’re

43:52 Brokenness is like you’re saying we’re gonna have a better solution that is or that allows us a clear process and path for Source control this this is the introduction thing and yes right like ultimately if it gets to the point where we have systems and tools that allow us to manage our our power bi artifacts of the way that we would want them to related to Source control mechanisms a repeatable process that’s easy for people to follow and that becomes a standard practice then absolutely if you’re an inner if

44:24 then absolutely if you’re an inner if you want to get into a bi team or your Enterprise and your power bi power bi all the time then yes Source control absolutely should be part of the things that how to do but right now it’s very difficult right now it’s only the hardcore nerds that are like figuring out different solutions yeah nerds in the general term I am too right like don’t take that derogatory it’s like we’re finding Solutions because it’s not supported right like so it’s a hack over here or hack over there somebody builds a third party tool or something that we can integrate and use but it’s still very a very disjointed

44:54 but it’s still very a very disjointed experience that that still isn’t a good one no I wouldn’t expect it now but I’m I would imagine this is going to be just another one of those skill sets that you need to have Mike what do you think so I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna pull back just a little bit on your comment I think I agree with your comment no I think it says Tommy’s comment so Tommy I like your comment there I think you’re right I think this is I think this is a new world order that’s coming I think we’re I think we’re I think we’re bringing going back yeah we’re not I think we’re bringing into light here again these are a lot of things that it

45:26 again these are a lot of things that it has proven works well it has said this stuff is is easy to use once you understand how to use it and it helps with robust regular reporting so I would say in the space of reporting that is on the governed or more certified side of the world right these things this rigor that we’re talking about is something that has been missing from Power bi it is it has been purely a tool power bi has been a tool built for the business user it has been built for the users of excel who I’m just stitching somebody together

45:56 who I’m just stitching somebody together I’m putting I’m blending some information and I’m going to find some quick insights one of the things that has been lacking from the power bi Community is any developer-centric things right there’s been almost no help there from the developer so what has happened is the more expertise users in model development and the further down you go down this route the more you do deeper creation closer to the model the the higher the tool skills need to be right so I think this is a natural progression

46:26 so I think this is a natural progression I think Microsoft also is addressing the largest population of need first and then coming back and film backfilling in the more specialized needs and what I the more specialized needs and what by that is mean by that is the largest need was we have hundreds of millions of users who could immediately use power bi and find Value right away so let’s address those needs first by getting them a tool that’s easy to use now we’re getting to a point where there’s so much of this there’s so much proliferation we now need better controls to regularly release this stuff

46:57 controls to regularly release this stuff and so what we’re doing now instead of Microsoft moving fast and building again it’s a it’s a speed trade-off right if I don’t Define a spec for this for the report I can just keep changing reports all day long from Microsoft’s perspective I can add a new thing here I got a new widget there we can go to on visual editing we can do all these like so if you don’t define the definition of what a report has to do you can continue to iterate on what is the best experience for users to build you do that by not defining standards right as soon as the model defines a

47:27 right as soon as the model defines a standard the model is so pivotal to what power bi needs to do the model has been clearly defined and you see the iterations in the design cycle on the model much slower than the report side because that’s a defined spec it slows things down so I think you’re seeing now is we’re getting to a place where people are finding value and we’re able to slow down the development or iteration of reporting such that we’re now able to start standardizing and making specs around stuff and now we’re getting the more integrated pieces again I think the large Enterprise customers are asking

47:58 large Enterprise customers are asking for this and Microsoft’s not listening and we’re starting to get CI CD and get for everything every product Microsoft’s pulling out now it’s all being like day one they’re trying to add some level of git into that information so I guess to wrap up my thoughts here right if we look at the different personas of people and then the amount of impact of impact that is available to those roles a skills Matrix we’re focusing a lot of effort right now

48:30 we’re focusing a lot of effort right now on the data modeler that is the person that I think a lot of these things apply to this does not apply to a report Builder this is not reply to airport consumer but I would argue the report Builder and Report consumer are very large audiences and that’s what Microsoft was trying to address first so so I guess I would just say I would say like this right we are very excited because we are at the deepest level Tommy to your point who do I hire and how do I bring that

49:01 who do I hire and how do I bring that person into my organization what skills do they need if I’m hiring a data modeler and a report Builder and a report consumer if that’s if that’s the person I’m trying to hire in my organization on a percent they need to know this 100 this is part of their skill set but if I’m hiring just a report Builder I don’t think I would necessarily hide like need them to know this so I think it really aligns to what you expect to do and I think this is a big miss when hiring managers are bringing on Talent into Power bi I don’t think

49:31 on Talent into Power bi I don’t think hiring managers are clearly identifying what skill am I trying to fill am I going to fill a data modeler am I filling in the data engineering am I filling the report Builder side of things if you clearly Define that your skill set changes so I’m going to say statement true or false based on what you said in 2026 a successful data modeler knows and is experienced in terms of source control 100 okay a data modeler 100 regardless

50:01 100 okay a data modeler 100 regardless of the size of the team I would I would agree because I think I think you’re gonna get more experience again now that Microsoft’s going to build those things into the tools small teams don’t will still want to use deployment pipelines so I I think smaller mid-sized teams are

50:20 so I I think smaller mid-sized teams are still going to need to use this technology and again I think Microsoft did a smart thing by making premium per user yeah because now we can take all these premium level features and bring it to a really small team for a very efficient cost yeah 100 we need to know what’s going on what’s intriguing is I I still don’t know know I I still don’t think we know what source control and PBI is going to really look like agreed like this is yes it’s just introduction with the language correct but in terms of how the process is going to be I think that is still an

50:51 is going to be I think that is still an unknown no agree I agree I think there’s still some more development to be done there and I think it’s going to be up to us us to Define what that looks like right I to Define what that looks like right we’re again this is you you have to mean we’re again this is you you have to walk before you can run and I think this is the walking step here the walking step is can you even just manipulate right a data model or Report with code only that’s the starting point and once you have that figured out now you can start building okay what does the process look like to make this Deployable I was going to say we’re going to be heavily dependent on the

51:21 going to be heavily dependent on the technology here this is where the technology is going to dictate a lot of that process yes that first part are there any other tools out there technology for Source control and power bi at this point so you’re only talking about model so yeah right now right because if you think about even when I was talking about vsts like that included the reports reports you can you can do it today with PBI tools right you you can you can store a report as code

51:53 store a report as code I’m not sure if I would trust the ability of two people working on the same report at the same time and merging the changes at the end using EBA tools I think you might have really weird effects but I have done so personally I have taken a report run it through PBI tools decompressed it into a lot of little objects I’ve gone in I’ve found the visual and I modified the X and Y position of where that visual lives then I recompiled that file back down to a pbit a template

52:24 back down to a pbit a template reconnected my data set and then and it did move the visual in the right spot so like you do have some tools today that will let you modify the code that will then adjust the report but it’s it’s unsupported by Microsoft and I think this is what you’re what you’re seeing now is this is the first lens of Microsoft starting to support these things things but you have to think about it right Microsoft is only interested in generating more monthly active users Mouse is like I think the metric they

52:54 Mouse is like I think the metric they use right when you look when every time you see the the business application Summit there’s always the chart look at our monthly active users like this is chart that’s like exponentially growing Microsoft is so focused on that that adding Source control is not generating monthly active users yeah you think about like enter Enterprise efforts right and those directly fly in the face of of business value for them right like okay great like you’re you’re a giant you’re you’re a big bi team and you’re doing some implementation of power bi

53:27 some implementation of power bi embedded for certain use cases that’s one compared to what 10 000 users across a couple companies and like so the ratio for that reporting yeah value it provides to them is probably much lower I would say in in general like my thoughts on this are standards around Source control and manipulation of all the model and Reporting artifacts won’t be used used until that barrier entry is lowered in the standards across the user base are are defined right and

53:58 base are are defined right and we’re doing that we get we have some pieces that like power bi tools or you pieces that like power bi tools or through some of the other know through some of the other methods of in managing some of this in a better way to make a better experience for end users is we manipulate but at the same time like it it requires that that I think tool the process to you that I think tool the process to for for everybody to start glimming

54:28 know for for everybody to start glimming onto it and and it being a de facto part of a deployment so if I’m a pi if I’m a developer now or a pro what’s the secret sauce for me to get ahead of this right in terms of I gotta learn some of this I maybe never use Source control yet I’m hearing this podcast and I’m hearing oh this is going to be a thing what what should someone an assistant and start learning to kind an assistant and start learning to get ahead of the game of get ahead of the game that’s a great question I think the things we’re talking about yeah like

54:58 things we’re talking about yeah like just be cognizant of what’s going on right yaml the the new timdl I would say earn those things absolutely be the person that’s that’s already interacting with the models in the power bi service and understand like what capabilities we have the third-party tools xmlam get comfortable with that yep because those are those are the things that we’re already broaching and talking about related to like what does the opponent look like what are the the languages and files and tool sets look that

55:30 files and tool sets look that we’re managing already and the challenges within there right first and foremost you should be listening to the explicit measures podcast because we are we are we’re going to be in the Forefront of all this stuff and so if you want to know when desktop’s released moments after it’s released inside the service before the blog is even out you should definitely be listening to the podcast because everyone’s checking out this stuff so I would agree with you 100 Seth I mean I would agree with you 100 Seth I would say things I would I would start learning right now is I would start learning while the tools may change and things may adapt ssms SQL Server management

56:02 may adapt ssms SQL Server management Studio connecting to XML endpoints understand how that works understand what partitioning looks like and how partitioning works and incremental refresh Works inside a model in the service be comfortable with working with the xmla endpoint all right make sure you can connect to it with multiple tools tabular editor SQL Server management Studio understand how those tools work and what they can do to the model model I would also go through and make sure that I understand more of like understanding the definition of what a model can do

56:32 model can do and then I would just stay in tune listen to what Microsoft is doing around Tyndall and see where that’s going to go because I believe timdal is going to really impact how you are going to develop in the future so anything Microsoft says around cicd yaml I think is another language that’d be interesting to learn get familiar with it how it works again it’s very close to Tyndall anyways so those would be my advices yeah and I I would say download the April desktop today and

57:02 say download the April desktop today and then immediately after download and install vs code and create a repo get started familiar with yeah you can work on git yeah checking in checking out the fact that these two articles came out the same day obviously was not a coincidence and it’s showing the investment you give Microsoft too much credit credit [Laughter] so but I I would say that that shows the investment that they have in this and that’s going to be aligned with Source

57:32 that’s going to be aligned with Source control so start getting familiar with that start getting familiar with Source control start getting familiar with yaml and I think that’s where you can be in three years so I would agree with that one as well so with this we’re the end of our episode so it’s time for what does chat GPT say so I went in here and the question today was what are the best source control options for power bi and chat GPT thinks it’s first number one azure devops it’s second git it’s a

58:02 azure devops it’s second git it’s a widely distributed version control system and then it talks about GitHub same thing basically but okay fine and then it talks about Visual Studio team Services vsts okay yes that is another another version of git and then it says finally bitbucket so it took it took the language of purely a git repo or being able to Source control with tools I didn’t see on here SharePoint because that’s that’s really the only way you can really Version Control power

58:32 way you can really Version Control power bi files in an efficient way today which would be SharePoint so four and a half I would say this is a very low yeah chat GPT you missed it on this one this was not a very very well articulated answer from my perspective but I understand it was probably looking for more of the source control and it lost the context of how do you implement this for power bi apparently chat TPT does not scan website 2021 yeah exactly true circuit 2021 too 2021 too maybe I should have asked it to to Bing

59:03 maybe I should have asked it to to Bing chat and see how how it would have responded there so anyways with that we appreciate your listenership everyone yeah Mark you gave it 2 out of seven yeah I agree this is a very low ranking one on this one the two out of seven I forgot that yeah so he’s talking about python I think yeah exactly there’s a side Jack one oh sorry so with that being said thank you all very much for your listenership this was a lot of fun good topic today a lot of new things coming out if you want to stay in touch with what’s happening go check out the Microsoft blog a lot of things are developing

59:33 blog a lot of things are developing being deployed as we speak which is very exciting exciting if you like this episode if you had some thoughts around it we’d love for you to share your thoughts on Twitter or LinkedIn or respond back to the videos we love to have other interaction we’d like to hear what other people are saying about this topic as well where do you think this is going is this going to be the new world is this going to be how are you to build things in the future where do you see this looking like in in your workflow today so respond we’d love to have your feedback Tommy where else can you find the

60:03 Tommy where else can you find the podcast you can find the podcast anywhere it’s available Apple Spotify Google podcast leave a rating on Apple and Spotify help us out a ton if you want to join the conversation with the community you can do so every Tuesday and Thursday 7 30 a. m Central on all of power bi tips social channels awesome we appreciate you all very much thank you very much for today and we’ll see you next time

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