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Saving Incremental PBIX File Backups

Matt Allington saves PBIX Final Report V2 No Wait V3 Draft Demo 2 Copy Copy Copy 3.pbix:

I do a lot of Power BI model and report development; maybe you do too. There’s nothing worse than spending an hour or so developing your model only to have something go wrong and you lose your work. Things that can go wrong include:

  • Your PC/App crashes. Power BI does have auto save, but I prefer that to be the last thing I rely on to save the day rather than the only thing.
  • You make a significant mistake in the approach and need to undo your work (autosave won’t save you with this problem).
  • You make a big mistake in Power Query. There is no undo in Power Query, so if you spend an hour inside Power Query, don’t save, and then make a mistake, there is no way to recover your work.

At the time of writing, there are no version control tools built into Power BI, so as a result it is up to you to manage backups yourself.

Read on for a few tips around backups and file management.