Using Field Parameters when connecting to a #PowerBI dataset or Azure Analysis Services

The new preview feature “Field parameters” in Power BI desktop has opened a lot of creativity in the Power BI community.

But if you use a connection to a Power BI dataset or Azure Analysis Services – the Parameters button will be greyed out

And if you don’t have the permission to change the model you won’t be able to use the feature.

So how can we use the Field parameter filter to make field selection or measure selection dynamically?

Well – we can use another preview feature to enable this

If you have turned “DirectQuery for PBI datasets and AS” on – you will get the option make changes to this model

Clicking this will change your connection to a direct query source instead of a live connection.

When we click add a local model – we can choose the tables and measures we want to include

And our storage mode will change to “DirectQuery”

But another thing changes as well – the New parameter – Fields will be enabled on the modelling tab

And then we can start building our Field paramaters

In this case for selecting what to appear on the X-axis and another one for selecting Measures / values

And then we can make our visuals dynamic by using our field parameters in the X-axis and Y-axis in the visual

When publishing the report, it will mean that the workspace will get an extra dataset

But don’t worry the linage is visible and as it is a direct query there is no need for setting up datarefresh

If you connect a new report to the dataset you will also get the field parameters in the new report as the information is stored in the direct query dataset.

Hope you find this useful and if you do – give this post a like please