Using the new semantic model explorer

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A new model explorer, with the ability to create calculation groups Part two of a three-part series of blogs
It's in preview at the moment, but it's worth knowing that a new model explorer is coming to Power BI proper soon. This is a good thing, but the calculation groups which will also now be available are not for the faint-hearted! A new model explorer, with the ability to create calculation groups Using the new semantic model explorer (this blog) Creating and using calculation groups

A new model explorer, with the ability to create calculation groups

Part two of a three-part series of blogs

It's in preview at the moment, but it's worth knowing that a new model explorer is coming to Power BI proper soon. This is a good thing, but the calculation groups which will also now be available are not for the faint-hearted!

A new model explorer, with the ability to create calculation groups
Using the new semantic model explorer (this blog)
Creating and using calculation groups

Posted by Andy Brown on 25 October 2023

After enabling this new feature in Power BI Desktop preview (as described in the previous part of this blog), you can now view your report's model:

Click on the Model tab to see your model!

Here are the things you can see, with notes for each:

Node	What it contains
Calculation groups	Calculation groups give you a way to avoid repeating measures in your model; I've covered them in the final part of this blog.
Cultures	Power BI Desktop is just a mini version of SQL Server Analysis Services, or SSAS. In SSAS you can create different cultures to allow you to translate for international users, but at the moment Power BI doesn't support this feature (which is why only one culture will ever appear here).
Measures	Any DAX measures that you've created will (finally) all appear in one place!
Perspectives	As for cultures, a perspective is a feature which exists in SSAS but not - yet - in Power BI Desktop (different perspectives allow users to see different tables of data).
Relationships	The Wise Owl Create-a-Creature database has 8 relationships, which you can see if you expand this node:
Roles	If you're using role-based security, the roles that you've created will appear here.
Tables	The tables you've loaded!

Note that if you expand the Tables node you will see all of the tables in your model:

The Purchase table has 9 columns and has been (not surprisingly) loaded in one go, since we haven't divided up our data into partitions to make it load more quickly.

The semantic model explorer tab means that you no longer have to rely so much on external tools such as Tabular Editor, DAX Studio and ALM Toolkit.

Parts of this blog
A new model explorer, with the ability to create calculation groups Using the new semantic model explorer (this blog) Creating and using calculation groups

Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:

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