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| Generated using Microsoft Designer (first attempt only) |
Here are a few settings I change each time I set up Power BI on a new machine or virtual desktop that make developing Power BI semantic models and reports a bit faster. (I'm partially documenting this here for myself, as a reference.)
Options and Settings / Options
Data Load
Background Data: Never allow data previews to download in the background
This causes Power Query to be stingier about when it needs to run queries to generate data previews. Expect it to be more helpful when working with large data, slow data sources, or many queries. (Chris Webb)
Time Intelligence: Disable auto date/time
Disables Power BI creating a hidden date table for every date column by default, adding size that slows open and save time and adds clutter to the Data pane. (SQLBI)
Privacy
Privacy Levels: Always ignore Privacy Level settings
This avoids unnecessary isolation steps that Power Query uses to enforce privacy barriers between data sources, which can break query folding. Just be aware of what you're doing if you actually need source isolation. (Chris Webb)
Preview Features
On-object interaction
This feature name is terrible (should probably be called "on-object formatting") but it makes it much easier to change object settings in a few ways.
- Some parts of the visual can be modified directly by clicking specific parts of the chart, such clicking a title to enter the text directly into the chart, without touching the format pane.
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| Entering a visual's title directly in the object |
- Even better is that it saves you from searching the format pane for the settings that govern a specific part of the visual. For example, if you want to format the legend, click the legend and the format pane will jump directly to the legend settings. If you want to format the axis label, click the axis label and the format pane will jump directly to the axis label format settings.
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| Click part of the chart and the format pane automatically jumps to the relevant settings |
It's worth watching the linked video to see how you double-click a chart to activate that mode of interacting with it. (Guy in a Cube)
TMDL View
This allows you to see and edit the Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) behind your model with one click to push any updates. You may have experience how slow it is to, for example, rename measures one by one. It’s still early, but this opens the door to more precise and repeatable model changes. When it comes to things like finding and replacing names or properties or duplicating Field Parameters, this is faster than manual. I'm always looking for new use cases with the TMDL and DAX Query Views.
Other preview features
Features like Field Parameters, Visual Calculations, and the New Card Visual simplify common workarounds, eliminate the need for complex DAX or multiple objects that could be replaced by just one, so it’s worth learning about and enabling these visuals and features.
Report Settings / Pane Manager
Always show the pane manager, Show only one active pane
This prevents you from the extra clicking of closing panes after you open them, leading to an Inception-like report view consisting of an endless array of panes and a tiny, unreadable report in the upper left corner.
Power Query
View Menu
Enable: Monospaced, Show whitespace
This makes data easier to read and debug. Indentation and spacing issues are easier to spot, and a monospaced font is just better when writing expressions.
Disable: everything else
Things like Column profiling and quality indicators add overhead and aren’t reliable when working with data volumes greater than 1000 rows, which is virtually all the time, so it’s just wasted real estate and computation.
Report View
View Menu
Gridlines, Snap to Grid
These help with aligning visuals cleanly and quickly, especially when you’re building layouts that need to look polished. It saves time fiddling with spacing or relying on manual eyeballing. I realize this is a controversial viewpoint for people who like the option of adjusting things to the pixel, so I recommend coupling this with a page background image and report template planned in anticipation of leveraging this setting, so you're not painted into a corner trying to center objects against a background when no such slots in the grid exist.
Enable all panes in pane manager
This lets you keep access to all the major editing panes (Data, Build, Format, Performance Analyzer, ...) in a very small space on the right edge of the screen.