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Report download limitations (Microsoft)
For details on the limitations Microsoft imposes when downloading a report's .pbix file, see Microsoft documentation. Key limitations include:
Reports that rely on Direct Lake semantic models are not supported.
Reports published before November 23, 2016 and never updated are blocked by Microsoft APIs
Report copies saved in a different workspace than the original report cannot be fully backed up.
Power BI Backup Limitations for Web-Based Reports
Reports created directly via the Power BI web interface have backup limitations due to Microsoft API restrictions.
Scenario: User connects to data (SharePoint, OneDrive, or local drives) via the web browser interface.
Result: Metadata Only. The full report data cannot be backed up.
Cause: Microsoft APIs do not allow the capture of full data streams through web-browser connections for these sources.
Recommended Workflow: Power BI Desktop App
To ensure a complete backup of reports and semantic models, users must use the Power BI Desktop application to embed data.
Procedure for Successful Backup:
Open the Power BI Desktop application.
Connect to your data source (e.g., an Excel file or SQL database).
Build the semantic model within the desktop app to embed the data.
Save the file locally.
Publish the report to the Power BI workspace.
Why this works: When published from the Desktop App, the data becomes an embedded part of the report package, allowing Druva to capture the entire dataset rather than just the metadata.
Dataflows
Backup is supported only for Dataflows Gen1. Dataflows Gen2 is currently not supported.
Apps
Backup is supported for Workspace apps only. Org apps are currently not supported.
Dashboards
Due to Microsoft API limitations, dashboards cannot be directly imported and restored into Power BI workspaces. The dashboards are backed up as a JSON metadata file for reference purposes only, rather than an importable file.