Major updates to rule about version control for Power BI (#8598)

* Added intro describing drawbacks of directly publishing reports to Power BI Service

* Added bad-example-publish-report-directly

* Added good example images showing how history can be preserved

* Added paragraph and images about benefits of PBIP format

* Finished intro

* Added images showing how to convert reports to pbip format

* Created a section about support for version control in Power BI

* Minor updates

* Update rule.md

* Update rule.md

---------

Co-authored-by: Tiago Araújo [SSW] <[email protected]>

rules/do-you-use-version-control-with-power-bi/rule.md

@@ -19,53 +19,89 @@ archivedreason: null
 guid: 80cbeca6-d33a-4ad3-8127-d3ae46fc5f00
 ---
 
-## Foundational Concepts
-Doing version control with Power BI reports used to be problematic. The primary way of doing this was to commit the .pbix file into the repository using source control tools such as Visual Studio Code (VS Code). However, this has some drawbacks: 
+Power BI reports are generally published directly into Power BI Service. But doing so has many drawbacks. For example, you:
 
-<!--endintro-->
+* Can't see what was changed
+* Can't see who made the change
+* Can't see when the change was made
+
+In other words, the history of the changes isn't recorded anywhere. 
 
-* Data itself gets saved to source control, which is bad as it could be large 
-* Unable to see what has changed
-* Version control process is not user friendly for non-developers
+<!--endintro-->
 
 ::: bad
-![Figure: Bad example - Committing .pbix files to source control does not let you see what changed](bad-example-pbix-source-control.png)
+![Figure: Bad example - Publishing reports directly to Power BI Service does not record the history of changes](bad-example-publish-report-directly.png)
+:::
+
+The correct method is to convert your reports to the **Power BI Desktop Projects (PBIP)** format, and check the files into version control. When a report is saved in the PBIP format, Power BI decomposes it into multiple text files. This allows version control to identify the parts of the report that were changed. Additionally, Power BI saves the data associated with the report separately in a file called cache.abf. This file should not be saved in version control. 
+
+::: good
+![Figure: Good example - PBIP format allows comparing changes made to reports by decomposing it into multiple text files](good-example-compare-changes.png)
+:::
+
+::: good
+![Figure: Good example - PBIP format allows recording history of changes without saving data into version control](good-example-history-recorded.png)
 :::
 
-Microsoft has addressed these issues through the introduction of:
+The rest of this document describes this process in more detail. Additionally, it describes a way that you can setup version control in your company that will allow both developers and **business users** to commit reports into version control easily. 
+
+## Power BI Version Control Features
+
+In Microsoft Build 2023, Microsoft introduced the following features that make it much easier to do version control for Power BI reports:
 
+* [Power BI Desktop projects (PBIP)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-overview)
 * [Git integration in Power BI Service via Microsoft Fabric](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/git-integration/intro-to-git-integration)
   * Requires either Fabric capacity or a Power BI Premium per User license
   * Currently only integrates with Git repos in Azure DevOps
-* [Power BI Desktop projects](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-overview)
 
-The following video from Microsoft Build 2023 provides an overview of this. 
+The following video provides an overview of this. 
 
 `youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkS7DF7ElY`
 **Video: Empower every BI professional to do more with Microsoft Fabric | OD06 (Watch from min 5:00 to 13:00)**
 
 At a high-level you can set up version control as follows. Click on the links to get more detailed instructions on Microsoft Learn. 
 
-1. [Connect a workspace in Power BI Service with a branch in a Git repo in Azure DevOps](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/git-integration/git-get-started?tabs=commit-to-git#connect-a-workspace-to-an-azure-repo)
-2. [Commit changes to repo through the Power BI Service](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/git-integration/git-get-started?tabs=commit-to-git#commit-changes-to-git)
-3. [Update the workspace from Git](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/git-integration/git-get-started?tabs=commit-to-git#update-workspace-from-git)
+1. Convert all your Power BI reports to the PBIP format
+   * First enable Power BI Projects in Power BI Desktop - File | Option Settings | Options | Preview features | Power BI project (.pbip) save option
+   * Second "Save As" all your .pbix files as .pbip
 
-Committing a report to the repo in this manner saves it as a Power BI Desktop Project (PBIP). A Project no longer contains a .pbix file. It instead decomposes the report into the following artifacts.  
+     ::: img-medium
+     ![Figure: Enable PBIP format in Power BI Desktop](enable-pbip-format.png)
+     :::
 
-* [A Dataset folder](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-dataset), which contains files and folders representing a Power BI dataset
-* [A Reports folder](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-report), which contains the report settings, metadata for custom visuals, etc.
+     ::: img-medium
+     ![Figure: Convert all .pbix files to PBIP format](save-as-pbip.png)
+     :::
 
-::: info
-Whenever you see a .pbix file it should be converted to the PBIP format.
-:::
+     ::: info
+     Whenever you see a .pbix file it should be converted to the PBIP format.
+     :::
+
+   * Converting reports to the PBIP format decomposes it into the following artifacts.
+     * [A Dataset folder](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-dataset), which contains files and folders representing a Power BI dataset
+     * [A Reports folder](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-report), which contains the report settings, metadata for custom visuals, etc.
+
+     ::: img-medium
+     ![Figure: PBIP artifacts](ProjectFolders.png)
+     :::
+
+3. Commit the PBIP artifacts into a Git repository in an Azure DevOps project. Note, as of this writing Power BI's Git integration only works with Azure DevOps. 
 
-::: img-medium
-![Figure: PBIP artifacts](ProjectFolders.png)
-:::
+   **Note:** Once you convert the report Power BI Desktop will save a copy of the data into a file called [cache.abf](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-dataset#pbicacheabf) which gets stored in a ".pbi" folder inside the Dataset folder. This file should not be saved in version control. You can create a .gitignore file to prevent Git from committing it to the repository.
+
+   ::: img-large
+   ![Figure: cache.abf](PBICache.png)
+   :::
+
+   ::: img-large
+   ![Figure: The .gitignore file](Gitignore.png)
+   :::
+
+4.  [Connect a workspace in Power BI Service with a branch in the Git repo in Azure DevOps](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/git-integration/git-get-started?tabs=commit-to-git#connect-a-workspace-to-an-azure-repo)
 
-## Developing Reports
+### Developing Reports
 
-You should no longer edit or publish reports directly in the production workspace. A better process for editing and committing reports is described below. 
+You should no longer edit or publish reports directly in the production workspace on Power BI Service. A better process for editing and committing reports is described below. 
 
 ### Business Users
 
@@ -95,26 +131,18 @@ The process is done on one's PC. You will need to download Power BI Desktop. At
 3. Open Power BI Desktop, and enable Power BI Projects - File | Option Settings | Options | Preview features | Power BI project (.pbip) save option
 4. Open the [definition.pbir](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-report#definitionpbir) file in the “\<Report Name\>.Reports” folder on the local repo on your PC. This will open the report in Power BI Desktop. It will allow you to edit both the report and the dataset.
 
-  **Note:** PBIP folders do not by default contain any underlying data. So when you open a definition.pbir file the visuals may show as empty. Once you refresh the report Power BI Desktop will download a copy of the data into a file called [cache.abf](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/projects/projects-dataset#pbicacheabf) which gets stored in a ".pbi" folder inside the Dataset folder. This file should not be saved in version control. You can create a .gitignore file to prevent Git from committing it to the repository.
-
-::: img-large
-![Figure: cache.abf](PBICache.png)
-:::
-
-::: img-large
-![Figure: The .gitignore file](Gitignore.png)
-:::
+   **Note:** PBIP folders do not by default contain any underlying data. So when you open a definition.pbir file the visuals may show as empty. Please refresh the report to download the data.  
 
 5. Edit report in Power BI Desktop
 6. Commit report to feature branch
 7. Create PR to merge feature branch into ‘origin/main’ on Azure DevOps
 8. If you are creating a new report in Power BI Desktop, please save the report as a **.pbip** report (and not .pbix). You can do so via File | Save as | Select .pbip as the file type
 
-## Deploying Reports
+### Deploying Reports
 
 Deployments would typically be done by Power BI Admins. You as a dev generally won't do this directly unless you're responsible for a workspace yourself. 
 
-Reports can be deployed to a production workspace by simply syncing the workspace with the 'main' branch in the Reports repository. The figure below illustrates this. 
+Reports can be deployed to a production workspace on Power BI Service by simply syncing the workspace with the 'main' branch in the Reports repository. The figure below illustrates this. 
 
-![Figure: Example showing how to sync changes into a workspace in Power BI Service, effectively deploying reports](SyncChanges.png)
+![Figure: Hw to sync changes into a workspace in Power BI Service, effectively deploying reports](SyncChanges.png)