Live connections
A live connection makes a project on a model that lives on a server: SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Analysis Services, or a Power BI or Fabric semantic model. Nothing is imported: the server answers every query, as you, and the project keeps your own measures and report pages beside it.
Connect live
- On the start page, or Home › Connect live (also in File), fill in the Server and the Model: the database, or the workspace’s semantic model.
- Choose where to make the project, and its name (the model’s, to start with).
- Sign in if the server asks: Windows for your own server, Microsoft Entra ID (your work account) for Power BI, Fabric and Azure Analysis Services. See Signing in to a source.
| Server | What to type |
|---|---|
| Analysis Services on your network | server, server:port or server\instance |
| Analysis Services over HTTPS | https://host/olap/msmdpump.dll |
| Power BI or Fabric workspace | powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/<workspace> |
| Azure Analysis Services | asazure://<region>.asazure.windows.net/<server> |
The OneLake catalog also has Connect live… for a semantic model you find there. The status bar then reads “Live connection” and the server’s address.
What is the server’s
The model’s tables, columns, relationships, measures and roles are the server’s, read-only here: they change on the server. Get data and Transform data are off. What you can set here, for this project’s reports only and saved in its files, never on the server:
- A server measure’s or column’s format, display folder, description and visibility, and a column’s sort order.
- A measure of your own with the name of a server measure, which then hides the server’s in this project.
The best place to rename a measure or change its properties is the model on the server, where everyone using it gets the change; ask its owner. A change here is this project’s only, and stops working if the server renames or removes what it points at.
Your own measures
Add measures of your own to the server’s tables as in any model (see Measures and OAX). They are kept in the project, and OpenBI adds them to each query it sends the server that uses them: OAX is compatible with DAX, the language the server runs. In the Data pane each table has two folders first: Server measures, as the server has them (with its display folders inside), and Own measures, the project’s that have no folder of their own.
Report pages, the OAX view and Excel work as usual. In a query, OAX’s own functions, such as NETWORK.* or QUANT.*, are run by OpenBI on the rows the server returns. Excel connects to the server itself, as you, so your own measures aren’t in Excel.
Server answers kept
OpenBI keeps the server’s answers for a while, so a page seen again, reloaded or opened again asks the server only what it wasn’t asked before, even after the studio was closed or a measure changed. They are kept on this computer, encrypted for you, in the project’s .openbi folder, which git leaves out.
- To start with: kept 24 hours for every live connection (a server over HTTPS, the Power BI service, Fabric, a server on the network), and not kept for Power BI Desktop on this computer.
- Choose another with Home › Server results: Not kept: every query asks the server, 5 or 10 minutes, 1, 12 or 24 hours, or Kept until Refresh.
- Refresh, and reloading a page (Reload page, F5), ask the server afresh.
When the server’s model changes
The status bar shows what the project has that differs from the server: “Differs from the server: 2 renamed · 1 changed · 3 own measures”, in red when something is broken: “1 broken by changes on the server”. Click it to open Differences from the server:
- Broken by changes to the model: what the project points at that the server’s model no longer has, renamed or removed on that server, not by OpenBI. The visuals that use them say so; the rest of the report works.
- Server measures renamed here, The server’s columns and measures with this project’s properties, and Measures of this project’s own.
Show in model opens each one; Copy all copies the list, to give an agent, which can look at what changed on the server and propose the fixes.
On a Mac
A Mac reads live models over HTTPS: an Analysis Services server’s msmdpump.dll address, or a Power BI or Fabric workspace (powerbi://…), signed in with Microsoft Entra ID in your browser or with a code. A server’s name or server:port, and Azure Analysis Services, are read on Windows.