Edit 23th June 2020: Updated version (see download link at the end of the article) to reflect changes with the vpax fileformat in DAX Studio versions V11.0 upwards.
The VertiPaq-Analyzer tool is one of the great community tools that I really cannot live without. It gives me a great overview of all elements in my model and identifies potential performance problems by showing the storage requirements of each column. So when seeing expensive columns, the first question that arises is: “Do I really need this column or could I delete it?”. Luckily, this can now be answered with my new Power BI Cleaner tool. This tool shows the usage of all columns (and measures) within the tables of the VertiPaq Analyzer.
Power BI Cleaner shows unused columns in the VertiPaq-tables
Power BI Cleaner tool
So whenever there is no entry in the column “Where Used” you can go ahead and eliminate the column (or measure) from the model. Well – with two exception actually: Fields used in the definition of incremental load policies are currently not identified as well as used fields in calculation groups. So make sure to consider this before running wild 😉
In the table “Measures” you can spot which measures might not be used:
Identify unused measures with Power BI Cleaner Tool
And as a general recommendation: Always make sure to have your old version still in place and create a new version for your cleaned up file, just in case.
To learn more about the used elements, you can drill through to detail pages “Where Used Direct” and “Where used Indirect”:
Drill through to detail pages
“Where Used Direct” will show where the elements are directly used in:
Analyse directly used elements
And the next page “Where Used Indirect” will show elements that are using the selection indirectly at a later stage as well:
Elements that are indirectly used at a later stage
Please note that the drill through pages will only return values for columns and measures that have been used or referenced by used items (directly or indirectly) . So if a column or measure has been used in another column or measure this will not be shown as long as those elements haven’t been used anywhere in the report. This is intentional and reflects the purpose of the tool to be used as a cleanup-helper and not as a documentation tool.
What’s (not) covered
The areas covered for usage detection are the following:
- Calculated columns
- Measures
- Relationships
- Filters (on visual, page, report and drillthrough-level)
- Visuals
- Groups
- Roles
- Conditional formatting
And again – NOT covered are:
- Incremental load policies
- Calculation groups
Please let me know if there are areas that I’ve missed and I’ll see if I can include them as well.
Further limitations
- Columns that are only referenced by their name (without the preceding table name) will NOT be detected.
- False positives will be generated for measures that have the same name than column names: Unused measures will be flagged as used, if their column counterparts are used!
- Some custom visuals produce bad metadata which can lead to errors as well. The Network Navigator for example, renames the input table to “Table1” in the metadata. These fields will not be discoverable through this tool.
- Column and measure names including brackets “()” will currently not be picked up (this limitation might be lifted in future updates)
- There is a problem with the automatic escaping of Text boxes. So special characters in there might cause problems.
- It doesn’t work on models that are using live connections
How to use
- Retrieve vpax-file with DAX-Studio and paste path to vpax-file into parameter “FilePathVPAX”. ( ! This is a preview-feature that you have to enable like described here: https://www.sqlbi.com/blog/marco/2019/09/15/vertipaq-analyzer-2-0-preview-1/ )
- Transform pbix to pbit and paste path for pbit into parameter “FilePathPBIT” (This facilitates showing of “WhereUsed”-column in page “Tables”)
- Refresh All
Or check out this video for a detailed walkthrough:
How does it work
The tool uses the library and functions of the VertiPaq Analyzer and many metadata parsing algorithms of my Power BI Comparer tool. After all I want to thank Marco Russo for the support and confirmation that it is totally OK to adopt their open sourced solutions to other tools.
All the logic of this solution sits in the Power Queries. So do you want to know how this all works? Then just open the query editor and study the queries.
Download file: PowerBICleaner.zip
Enjoy and stay queryious 😉
Tried to use the PBI Cleaner file but am getting errors when trying to refresh, multiple queries are giving errors with a [Source] column, tried to step through the queries to fix but struggling to tell what should be setup to fix in some cases. Can you please advise? Tx
Please try this version and let me know if that helps: https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=de165ddf5d02daff&id=DE165DDF5D02DAFF%2193293&authkey=!ADx4CKF-sLfOTPE
Thanks, Imke
That version would refresh but still seemed to have an issue as it wasn’t identifying used fields correctly. After looking at the queries I modifed the UserFields1 Query, Step “Inserted Text Before Delimiter” to use [Value] instead of [Source] and that seems to have things working now.
Thanks, Chris.
Thanks Chris for reporting this.
Have uploaded a new version to the blogpost – please try this as well.
Thanks, Imke
Thanks so much for sharing this project – it looks extremely useful.
I tried it out on a file just now (that I need to tidy up), and first struck the same error as Chris (ref earlier comment). While the actual error was avoided using the v2 version, the report then doesnt show any results for Where Used = Visuals, Relationships, DAX Expressions, possibly others. All I see in Where Used is columns and hierarchies.
As I described in an earlier comment, my query: UsedFields1 is showing an error at step: _GetRoles –
Expression.Error: The field ‘roles’ of the record wasn’t found.
I also noticed my query: UsedFields2 is showing an error at step: Result –
Expression.Error: We cannot apply field access to the type Null.
I tried deleting one unused Custom Visual – the report still uses Bullet Chart by OKViz which is up-to-date.
I hope that info is useful. I can share the pbit and vpax files if that helps. I’m very keen to help get this working.
Thanks again, Mike
Thanks Mike,
currently working on another update – might upload later today!
Cheers, Imke
This is a great addition to vertipaq analyzer. It’ll remove the manual effort of finding references, especially within visuals.
Will this be integrated into DAX Studio?
Will there be any effort to detect columns without a table name?
Hi Jon,
thanks for the feedback.
There will be no integration with DAX-Studio, as the data for the visuals isn’t included in any DMV.
I could possibly create a version where detecting column names without the table name is an option. But as you can use the same column name in multiple tables, this would create false positives for those cases.
So this would require additional documentation to highlight that risk. Let me see when I can manage that.
/Imke
Imke,
I have 3 measures
[Total Sales]
[PY Sales]
[% YOY Sales] =DIVIDE([TotalSales]-[PY Sales],[PY Sales])
On the measures tab for [PY Sales] “WhereUsed” is empty.
I don’t think this is intentional, or is it?
Hi Frank,
hast [% YOY Sales] been used anywhere in the report?
[PY Sales] should only be shown in the “Where Used” if it has been used somewhere in the report. Directly or indirectly.
So if [% YOY Sales] hasn’t been used anywhere in the report the measures that define it also shouldn’t show up.
Otherwise: I have a new version with some bugfixes that you might want to try. Just give a me a shout please.
/Imke
Thanks!
I expected “DAX expression” to be shown, but your approach makes more sense.
Hi Imke,
This tool is great but I have the same problem as Frank Tonsen.
I can assure that [% YOY Sales] is used in my PowerBi but I get still no use for [Total Sales] & [PY Sales]. I would like to test this updated version you mentioned.
Hi Ilona,
please check out the new version here: https://www.thebiccountant.com/download/8620/
Feedback very much appreciated.
Thanks and kind regards,
Imke
Hi Imke
I’ve tested the new version and the Problem still persists, but I can tell you that it is another Problem than I thought. The real problem is, that some measures and columns are not detected as used. Therefore the indirect used measures are also not detected.
At the moment I cannot tell you anything these measures and columns have in common. The problem seems to appear completely random.
Nevertheless is your tool very helpful, but I have to be very carefully before deleting anything.
Hi Ilona,
that’s a pity.
If you could share your pbit and vpax-file, I’m happy to investigate.
info at thebiccountant.com
Thanks and cheers, Imke
Hi Imke,
Its’ really kind, that you offer to investigate, but I am not allowed to share these files with you.
Kind regards
Ilona
Thanks Ilona.
/Imke
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Hi, I love the Power BI Cleaner tool! I’ve spotted a potential bug, so I thought I’d post about it to help ongoing development of the tool. I’m using measures to create dynamic card titles, and where I’ve used conditional formatting of a card’s title to directly reference a measure, that measure doesn’t get reported as being used.
Hi KyokoHunter,
thanks for this hint – will try to fix it with the next release.
/Imke
Have uploaded a new version that picks up DAX expressions used in conditional formatting rules as well.
Hi Imke,
Thank you so much for this tool – very useful.
Could you please add a usage detection for conditional formatting on titles?
Thanks!
Hi Dor,
let me check later, it should be in there already…
/Imke
Hi Imke,
Great tool! Keep on going this project.
Is there a one link we can find the latest version now and in the future?
Hi Bartek,
I will include in the post once ready.
/Imke
Hi Imke
Many thanks for this wonderful tool.
Does this have an issue working with pbix files which has ‘Store datasets using enhanced metadata format’ enabled? Bcoz on such files, I am getting an error in the ‘Columns’ table – “We found extra characters at the end of JSON input.” when the data is refreshed.
Yes, it doesn’t work with that new format unfortunately.
Have updated the post accordingly.
Working on a fix – should be out Mid July.
Sorry about this – Imke
Thanks for the update.
Hi Imke
Has this issue been fixed?
Hi Gopa,
yes if you use the latest PBI versions.
/Imke
Hi Imke
The issue still persist with the new version also. Am I missing something?
Hello Gopa,
sorry to hear, but for me it’s all working fine.
Please check the instructions again on how to use it.
/Imke
Figured it out, TextEncoding.Utf16 needs to be used as the optional text encoding option for the Text.FromBinary() function on TableAllFields and RLStaging tables. Once that is added it should run correctly.
Hi Ethan,
Thanks for the heads up and feedback!!
Does this tool works with Live Connection PBIX ? I’m trying to use with PBIX which connects to Azure Analysis Service when I try I get error Error loading queries from other visuals
Hi Nathan,
it cannot work with live connection, as no query or model data is stored in pbix/pbit.
/Imke
Hi – I’m getting an error after setting the paramaters for my file names and refreshing. for the FieldUsageDetails, i get this error – FieldUsageDetails
OLE DB or ODBC error: Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040E4E. Any ideas whats causing this?
No, haven’t come across this error message.
But you can find a lot on the internet about it.
/Imke
Not sure why that happened but my file ended up showing a duplicate for each item in the measures list, 1 with the proper data type, 1 showing null. i did a remove duplicates step on the query, and now it ran. Thanks for creating this.
Thanks – great to hear!
Hi Imke! Thanks for providing this tool. It looks very promising. However I seem to have several measures that are reported as not used (column “Used In” in the Measures report page is empty for the measure) although I indeed see that they are used in a visual. I cannot see anything particular with these measures.How can I troubleshoot this? i downloaded the latest version of the tool today fyi.
Thanks
Fredrik
Hi Fredrik,
sorry to hear.
I believe you’ve read the section about limitations?
There is no easy way to troubleshoot this other than stepping through the underlying queries.
Would you be able to share your files (vpax and pbit)? I’d be very interested to sort this out.
Thanks, Imke
Sorry for the late reply, I did not receive any notification (or maybe it’s in the spam folder). I will certainly dig up the files and share with you. I have read the limitations and don’t think they apply.
Thanks Fredrik
Hi Imke, I am working with version (V7) and spotted some issues with “Where used” column.
It shows blanks where in fact a column was used in a table visual or another one as a visual filter. In a first case the “Merge Queries” step in “Filed Usage” query retrieves null values when the columns used in join does not precisely match each other.
Hi Bartek,
sorry for inconvenience. Are you able to share a sample file?
/Imke
Calculation Items
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Columns
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Columns Segments
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Columns Hierarchies
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Measures List
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Relationships
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Roles Expressions
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
Tables
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
User Hierarchies
Loading blocked by failures with other queries.
FieldUsageDetails
WhereUsed
Hi Viktor,
sorry to see that you’ve run into issues.
Are you able to share the files you’ve used? info at thebiccountant.com
Thanks,
/Imke
Wow, Imke, what a great work you did! Helped me a lot with my around-100 tables model. Please advise if I can donate some money for using it, you saved me hours of work.
Thanks Maria for the feedback. Very glad to hear it helped.
This tool is a free contribution to the community.
It would be great if you could pay it forward or make a donation to a charity of your choice.
Thanks and cheers,
Imke
Hey Imke, what a great work . I’m starting to useit and have already removed the unnecessary fields for some powerBI applications . The content is much completer then powerBI helper from Radacad. The only issue I’m facing is that the update of the report is very slow ( 30 – 45 min ) and in query editor it is very very slow to make changes if necessary. Did you ever had the same issue ? I’m running it on laptop with 16 gb of memory .
Hi Alain,
make sure that background refresh is disabled (see first point here: https://www.thebiccountant.com/speedperformance-aspects/ )
Otherwise: These queries take quite some time to refresh, because there is a lot to be done. (As you have recognized, it covers areas no other tool is doing currently).
But I haven’t had a workbook where the refresh would take that long.
How many measures do you have in there? And how many visuals? (Roughly)
/Imke
Hi Imke,
Thank you for sharing the tool and it is super useful for data cleansing!
I have a question on how to use your tool when connecting to “PowerBI dataset”.
The setup of my PowerBI is as follow:
– PowerBI model – 1 file with all the tables linked to SQL Server (eg. Model.pbix)
– PowerBI reports – 10 files connecting to the same PowerBI model (ie. Model.pbix) by using “PowerBI dataset” (eg. ReportA.pbix, ReportB.pbix, ReportC.pbix…..etc)
I was trying to convert one of report to PBIT file and also convert the PowerBI model to VPAX file like this:
-> Model.pbix ==> converted to Model.vpax
-> ReportA.pbix ==> converted to ReportA.pbit
Then I used your tool to import the above 2 files and hit refresh, but the operation was failed and it says some refresh errors about “loading blocked by failures with other queries”. I am not sure if the tool can still be used if I split the model and reports in separate files?
I also tried to convert the PowerBI model to PBIT file and and also convert the same PowerBI model file to VPAX and it was successful (it took almost 5 hours to complete the full refresh):
-> Model.pbix ==> converted to Model.vpax
-> Model.pbix ==> converted to Model.pbit
Based on my settings with “PowerBI dataset”, am I allow to use your tool for analyzing my reports?
Thank you!
Best regards,
Emily
Hello Emily,
currently you can only use this tool on one file. So not with splitted files like yours, unfortunately.
/Imke