Action BI Toolkit | pbi-tools

pbi-tools is a command-line tool bringing source-control features to Power BI. It works alongside Power BI Desktop and enables mature enterprise workflows for Power BI projects.

An example project is available here: https://github.com/action-bi-toolkit/adventureworksdw2020-pbix

Watch https://www.action-bi.com/action-bi-toolkit for further info. More docs are coming!

User Notes

Installation

Download the tool as a ZIP file (no installer required) from Releases (under Assets). Extract and run from a command prompt.

Make sure to unblock the ZIP file before extracting.

Tool Actions

• extract • Extracts the contents of a PBIX/PBIT file into a folder structure optimized for source control
• compile-pbix • Generates a PBIX/PBIT file from sources. PBIX is supported for report-only files, PBIT for files containing models
• export-bim • Generates a BIM file deployable to an XMLA endpoint from sources. Supports both Power BI Premium and Azure Analysis Services
• extract-data • Exports all tables into CSV files from either an offline PBIX file or a running Power BI Desktop session
• info • Prints diagnostics info about the local Power BI environments. Optionally checks for the latest Power BI Desktop release available from Microsoft Downloads
• launch-pbi • Launch a new Power BI Desktop instance with a given PBIX/PBIT file. Does not support Windows Store version

Detailed Usage Notes

See detailed CLI docs here.

Running pbi-tools.exe with no actions specified prints all available options.

Running pbi-tools {action} -? prints usage details for that specific action.

Prerequisites

• Windows 64-bit
• Power BI Desktop 64-bit. Installer version (default location) and/or Windows Store version supported. Optionally, pbi-tools works with Power BI Desktop in a custom location, provided the path is specified in the PBITOOLS_PbiInstallDir environment variable.
• .Net Framework Runtime 4.7.2 (Comes with Power BI Desktop)

A cross-platform .Net 5 version is currently under development.

Command-line Syntax

-argumentName argumentValue
/argumentName:argumentValue
-argumentName                   - If the argument is a boolean it will be true in this case.

Diagnostics

• Log output can be controlled using the environment variable PBITOOLS_LogLevel.
• Allowed values are:
  • Verbose
  • Debug
  • Information
  • Warning
  • Error
  • Fatal
• The default is Information, which is also effective when an unknown/invalid option has been specified.

Developer Notes

Build System

• All build targets are implemented using FAKE.
• Dependencies are managed using Paket.
• Main entry point for all build tasks is .\build.cmd.
• The fake-cli tool is installed as a local .NET Core Tool, see .config\dotnet-tools.json. That's why a .Net Core 3.x SDK is required to build the project. The build.cmd script handles the tool installation.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2019 (for MSBuild dependencies)
• .Net Core SDK 3.x or later
• Power BI Desktop x64 (Must be installed in default location for local development: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Desktop\)

Versioning

Build

.\build.cmd Build

Run Tests

.\build.cmd Test

Run only the specified build target

.\build.cmd UsageDocs -s

Install Dependencies

dotnet paket install

That is generally not needed as the build.cmd script takes care of fetching dependencies. However, it could be useful to run this manually on a fresh clone or after making changes in the paket.dependencies file.

Update Dependency to latest version (ex: AMO)

dotnet paket update Microsoft.AnalysisServices.retail.amd64
dotnet paket update Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient.retail.amd64

Updating Build Dependencies

dotnet paket update -g Fake-Build

Find outdated dependencies

dotnet paket outdated -g Main

Invoke Build script directly

dotnet fake {...}
dotnet fake -t Build
dotnet fake --version

Run single build target

dotnet fake build -s -t SmokeTest

Extract embedded sample PBIX with local build version and using default settings

.\pbi-tools.local.cmd extract '.\data\Samples\Adventure Works DW 2020.pbix'

Extract embedded sample PBIX with local build version and 'Raw' serialization mode, into custom output folder

.\pbi-tools.local.cmd extract '.\data\Samples\Adventure Works DW 2020.pbix' -extractFolder '.\data\Samples\Adventure Works DW 2020 - Raw' -modelSerialization Raw