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Microsoft Idea

    Power BI

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    Identify unused tables/ columns

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    LarsSchreiber's profile image

    LarsSchreiber on 08 Dec 2015 06:19:23

    With growing data models and 10s or 100s of measures its hard to keep the overview wich of the columns are neither used in a measure, nor as a slicer/ filter. For optimizing the data model (e. g. removing unnecessary columns) it would be great to know who they are.

    Comments (16)
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    Gary Miller on 13 Oct 2022 08:59:47

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    218 votes already! This is 8 years old!Please also combine the votes with others like https://ideas.powerbi.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=5e522fa8-f2e1-ea11-bf21-281878bd6a00 which are for the same thing.

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    on 09 Dec 2021 21:20:56

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    I have reports with close to 100 measures. Sometimes reports get so complex that I forget to delete an unused measure. Please add a toggle that highlights any unused measures in a pbix file. Something similar to the yellow highlight on everything used in a visual.

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    Arran Tilney on 19 Nov 2021 14:00:23

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    same function can be applied to any fileds, tables, measures etc.

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    Christian on 06 Jul 2020 00:09:11

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    I'm in chock that this isn't already a thing in Power BI. I would be nice if the developers would focus on these things instead of the ribbon.

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    Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:42:33

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    This is a must-have for people inheriting a field heavy dashboard written by someone else.

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    sam thompson on 05 Jul 2020 23:37:39

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    This is a must have

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    Rod Lovely on 05 Jul 2020 23:36:52

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    Totally agree with this and other suggestions for managing measures, identifying dependencies and so forth. I create a lot of interim and/or 'experimental' measures during report development and it would be nice to quickly identify the measures I end up not using when I'm ready to share my final reports

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    Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:31:39

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    Great and important idea. can make the report much more efficient.

    also, if possible, to mark unused column also (can be later manually deleted from the module in order to improve the report process result )

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    Lars van Pelt on 05 Jul 2020 23:24:58

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    This would be a great way of informing what code can be removed from SQL queries on established reports without having to go through every single visual.

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    James McCahill on 05 Jul 2020 23:14:26

    RE: Identify unused tables/ columns

    This would be very effective in improving performance

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