Power BI desktop limitation

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Introduction

This article describes limitation of Power BI desktop tool. It is based on my practical experience over multiple Power BI reports deliverable. This tool is continuously improving in each release. It is also possible some of limitation may improve in future release.
This article will help Power BI developer to take decision on any implementation.

Limitation of Power BI desktop

  • Limited number of DAX() supported in direct query mode.
  • We cannot automate Filter default value. Suppose if require to select specific item on filter based on expression, we cannot do this in Power BI.
  • We cannot set Chart color dynamically. We can set it for constant axis value only.
  • We don’t have any chart control to display secondary axis in details. We have line and clustered column chart to show only secondary axis value not its X-axis and Y-axis.
  • Report subscription is not supported in Power BI.
  • We cannot access Power BI report HTML value even through Power BI web API. This is the reason we cannot customize it.
  • Date and Time Intelligence methods does not support in direct query. We need to write required formatting logic manually.
  • Export of report is not possible. We can only export dataset in Power BI.
  • We don’t have control over query generated for each measure or columns. Sometime report become very slow due to complex expression and lookup queries and you need to get actual query produced by Power BI through SQL Profiler.
  • We cannot change data type of column in direct query mode. However, we can do it for measure and custom columns.
  • Column rename (Only direct query columns) of existing report may cause report problem. You cannot set any alias for this.
  • Accuracy of number is also big constraint in designing report. Expression in measure automatically picked data type based on values and precision. It causes problem in accuracy. For large values it will never match from SQL calculation until you don’t do it through manual typecast in SQL.
  • Filter behaviour in Power Bi is different. When we unselect all item in filter, it assumes as Select All.

Points of Interest

This article explain limitation of Power BI desktop tool

History

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