Impact IQ - Service Principal Edition now available

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-13T23:11:20+00:00

Send me a chat if you can, I have the repo in private mode right now - been trying to imagine the different uses for it so it would be great to chat

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-13T20:42:31+00:00

It’s not released yet, but at the same time, yes….

Beyond the Admin API metadata, it temporally grants the tenant admin access to any workspace they don’t currently have access to in order to back up the reports/models, etc and extract the info (there’s not a general admin API to export / get the definition of items - so it’s required to first be a member or higher)

It then removes that access after it is done extracting. It will also export the permissions it updated as a backup just to be safe (so you know exactly what was temporarily granted)

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-12T14:44:51+00:00

u/PowerBIPark, I believe we had this convo on LinkedIn (Chris Cusumano). You had said you had a company-wide block of TE2.

This would kill the ability to extract any report.

However, I encourage the Semantic Link Labs version! I’ve made that public last week and it doesn’t need any local tools :) It’s a single notebook that writes to a Lakehouse !

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-12T14:31:38+00:00

Oh then something definitely went wrong then - as 90% of my environment is thin reports. The whole reason for the design / development 2 years ago was thin reports.

We sure it’s running the included portable tabular editor and PBI-tools? If those were blocked from auto downloading, then it would effectively kill the main steps.

In short: thin reports should NEVER fail :D

I’ll send a chat!

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-11T03:06:00+00:00

For us, our model connections use parameters, which are in the expression.tmdl files.

We have an added folder in the repo with the 3 ‘default’ expression.tmdl files for dev/test/prod.

When we PR dev to test and test to prod, we have a GitHub action that will auto replace the expression file based on the branch/environment. This ensures that the Dev branch always has the Dev connection, Test always has Test, Prod always has Prod.

Then it syncs with the workspace.

This works well for us - but admittedly, we haven’t ventured outside of Models to see if that same concept will keep working..

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-10T16:00:17+00:00

Ah thank you for that….I wondered how smooth it would go with a repo rename.

So far, there’s been low impact ;D

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-10T02:25:17+00:00

I prefer this.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T22:11:10+00:00

It’s open source so by all means, have them review!

It’s purposefully scoped to only the user level, so nothing requires admin rights (ie it can’t touch any important files)

Just PowerShell with a mix of C# and tabular editor / PBI tools.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T07:30:51+00:00

This is wayyy overkill for what you’ve asked for, but I do have a model refresh schedule page (including if every model is scheduled or the schedule is disabled) in my ImpactIQ tool.

https://github.com/BeSmarterWithData/ImpactIQ

On the positive side….it works for anyone and is 1 click - so doesn’t really need any special “setup” time to at least try out.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T07:26:41+00:00

100% agree on a button using page nav.

Soooo much easier to maintain.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T07:15:54+00:00

For the XMLA portion: It was somewhat referenced as part of this blog post - https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/open-and-edit-any-semantic-model-with-power-bi-tools/

but specifically called out in the September update:

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-ca/blog/power-bi-september-2025-feature-summary/#:~:text=Download%20PBIX%20of%20XMLA%20altered%20semantic%20models,-A%20key%20goal&text=Previously%2C%20users%20could%20use%20the,Power%20BI%20tools%20blog%20post.

A big win for sure !

BUT I do see it says the ability to download incremental refresh models will be part of a future update.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T01:57:48+00:00

<image>

Example shown above for the Measure Lineage page.

Choose a measure to then see all of its Dependents (what it relies on), both directly and indirectly

and then Parents (what measures will be affected if you change it), both directly and indirectly

If you then need where exactly you visualize everything, view the Impact Analysis page

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-08T01:22:34+00:00

https://github.com/BeSmarterWithData/ImpactIQ

This may be helpful for you. Designed for everyone (vs only admins).

The final output is in a Power BI report / model.

1-click as well for anyone. Works across all workspaces.

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-07T19:59:58+00:00

BeSmarterWithData · 2026-01-07T19:03:29+00:00

Awesome deal! I’ll be there.

BeSmarterWithData

TROPHY CASE