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Support databases with >10000 objects

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on 01 Sep 2016 22:17:00

The current version of the data source browser in PBI desktop only seems to support a limited numer of objects. Only the first 10.000 objects are shown in the list - and it becomes sloooow.
If the desired object is not under the first 10.000, you are lost. The search won't work. Your only option is to write a query in the SQL field. But because there is no option to Name your data source, you can only do this once - another query on the same source will overwrite the data source. I experienced that with an Oracle DB, so perhaps the issue is source specific.

Comments (16)
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Andreu fil on 19 Apr 2024 12:57:19

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Good information, thankssehackear.top

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Ricardo Arboleda on 06 Jul 2023 21:42:22

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Good day,I agree with this idea. We have a situation in which a database has more than 10000 objects, and we cannot look for specific once that the limit has been surpassed.

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Adm Broer on 21 Sep 2022 15:59:20

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Minimal Valuable Product: Overrule selection button OR choice input field with 10.000 as default.

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Paul Swan on 15 Jun 2022 16:41:31

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

As an alternative to increasing the limit could the search function re-query the database and just pull the tables that match rather than the (dare I say it) lazy method of filtering the entries in the list.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:57:46

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Yes, this limitation is aggravating for sure for inexperienced data architects/data developers. Most new developers just want to pull everything into Power BI. But this is not the way we want to do things.

Most reporting efforts require some degree of ETL/ELT. IE: Changing column names, padding columns, selecting only the columns we need, using a WHERE clause to limit data, possibly aggregating data, etc Which involves the use of other schemas, views, stored procedures, databases, etc to shape the data we are after.

So, what am I saying? Let's say you're using Dynamics and you need two tables that start with V (which is outside the 10,000 table list). What we want to do is think about the data we are after and shape it using a bit of SQL. Let’s say you want columns from VENDTABLE and the VENDINVOICEJOUR. You can write your query and put that into a view. Create the view in (let’s say) the .rpt schema (that I have put in several databases specifically for this purpose). And then you can access that view from Power BI. Each schema (dbo, rpt, information_schema) has a 10000 object limit. There are only about 10 objects on that server in the .rpt schema.

So, do not think in terms of grabbing all the data first in Power BI. This works for smaller databases, but not for large ERP/database systems. Think in terms of limiting/building what you want through the use of SQL. Then put that in a different schema. Then querying those structures to build your reports.

This is not a hokey solution. This is a good design principal.

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Rodrigo Dornelas Melo on 05 Jul 2020 23:33:21

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Do you have any solutions? In my organization we use a TOTVS's ERP, their database has no normalization, we use only one schema with 16,000 tables.

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Paul Swan on 05 Jul 2020 23:31:41

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

This needs to be fixed, what is the point in having the selection screen if us ERP report writers have to hand code SQL just to get the table we are after.
If you have a NAV database with anything more than 2 companies it will easily exceed 10,000 tables.
At least you could look at getting the search function working by re-querying the database for all tables containing the search term instead of just the downloaded list of entries.
A simple fix for a really annoying problem.

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Rafa Morales on 05 Jul 2020 23:29:27

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

KEN CLUBOK, ERES EL MEJOR!!!!

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Daniel Pernigotti on 05 Jul 2020 23:29:07

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

Ken Clubok, eres el put@ amo!! gracias!

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Pawel Potasinski on 05 Jul 2020 23:24:07

RE: Support databases with >10000 objects

I don't believe it. Microsoft, really? You really think there are no databases with tens of thousands of tables in a single schema? Well known old-fashioned Dynamics apps, IFS-like Oracle-based ERPs, intensively developed SAP BW databases almost ALWAYS have these numbers of objects! It is a shame to force people to use dirty workarounds like duplicating queries, writing SQLs or creating dedicated schemas with views just to pass a limitation of poorly designed BI tool. Shame!