Introduction

This blog post guides you through building a semantic model within Power BI while leveraging Microsoft Fabric as the underlying data platform. We’ll walk through the process visually, with screenshots embedded throughout, to help you create a workspace, configure settings, and ultimately build the data model for your reports.

Creating a Power BI Workspace in Microsoft Fabric

  1. Navigate to Workspaces: Within Microsoft Fabric, locate the “Workspaces” section. Image of Workspaces section in Microsoft Fabric

  2. Add a New Workspace: Click the “Add new workspace” button. This button typically has a plus sign (+) symbol. Image of Add new workspace button

  3. Name Your Workspace: Enter a descriptive name for your workspace that reflects its purpose. In our example, we’ll name it “dev” for development purposes. Image of Naming a new workspace

  4. Apply Workspace Creation: Click “Apply” to finalize the creation of your new workspace.

Enabling Data Model Editing

  1. Access Workspace Settings: Click the three dots in the top right corner of your newly created workspace. This will reveal a dropdown menu. Image of Workspace settings menu

  2. Navigate to Power BI Section: Locate the “Workspace settings” option within the dropdown menu and click on it. Image of Selecting workspace settings

  3. Enable Data Model Editing: Under the “General” section within the workspace settings, find the “Data model settings” section. Click the checkbox for “Users can edit data models in the Power BI service (Preview)”. Image of Enabling data model editing

Building the Report and Data Model

  1. Create a New Report: Launch Power BI Desktop and click on “New” to initiate the report creation process. From the dropdown menu, choose “Report”. Image of Creating a new report in Power BI Desktop

  2. Paste or Import Data: You have two options for bringing your data into Power BI Desktop. Click the “Paste data” button if you have your data copied on your clipboard, or choose “Manually enter data” if you want to input it directly. Image of Data import options in Power BI Desktop

  3. Paste Your Data: If you chose to paste your data, paste it from your source (like Excel) into the provided grid within Power BI Desktop. Image of Pasting data into Power BI Desktop

  4. Configure Data Table:
    • Click the button to “Use first row as headers” to ensure your column headers are recognized correctly.
    • Assign a name to your table, something meaningful that reflects the data it contains. In this example, we’ll name it “FactTable”. Image of Configuring data table in Power BI Desktop
  5. Create Semantic Model: From the dropdown menu available in the top bar, select “Create a semantic model only”. This option ensures you’re building the data structure for analysis. Image of Creating a semantic model

Opening and Working with the Data Model

  1. Access Data Model View: Click “Open Data Model”. You’ll now see your “FactTable” within the data model view. Here, you can create relationships between tables, define hierarchies for your data elements, and manipulate the overall schema to optimize your data analysis.

Image of Open Data Model in Power BI Desktop Image of Data Model in Power BI Desktop

Conclusion

By leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s data management capabilities and Power BI Desktop’s robust modeling features, you can create a powerful and flexible foundation for your reports. This blog post provided a high-level overview of the process with accompanying visuals. Remember to consult the official Microsoft documentation for more in-depth guidance on specific functionalities within both Microsoft Fabric and Power BI.