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Direct Query

PowerBI can connect directly to Honeydew in Direct Query mode by using the Honeydew ODBC driver.

A Honeydew domain will be presented to the data model as a single virtual table.

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PowerBI Service

PowerBI Service can connect to Honeydew in Direct Query mode using the PowerBI Gateway.

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Metadata Sync

PowerBI can query Honeydew directly from the newly created connection. However, fields will lack associated metadata.

With Metadata Sync, Honeydew synchronizes the following metadata to PowerBI:

  • Field type (metric or attribute) - attributes have default aggregation set to “none” and are presented as fields. regardless to data type, while metrics have a default aggregation set and are presented as measures.
  • Field display names. When no display name is set, Honeydew creates an automatic user friendly name.
  • Field folders. When no folder is set, Honeydew uses the entity name as folder names.
  • Field hidden property.
  • Field descriptions.
  • Field format and semantic role (through metadata configuration).

Attributes have “none” as a default aggregation to distinguish them from metrics. But aggregating on attributes is possible! Any specific PowerBI widget that needs to aggregate can do so by choosing an aggregation in the widget “field well”.

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PowerBI-specific Metadata

You can add PowerBI-specific metadata, that specifies the default formatting or the semantic role, to an attribute or a metric in the schema:

...
metadata:
  - name: powerbi
    metadata:
      - name: formatstring
        value: yyyy-mm-dd
      - name: datacategory
        value: Latitude

Some examples for formatstring values (PowerBI DAX documentation):

  • yyyy-mm-dd
  • #,##0;-#,##0

Some examples for datacategory values:

  • Latitude
  • Longitude
  • PostalCode
  • City
  • StateOrProvince
  • Continent
  • Place
  • WebUrl
  • ImageUrl
  • Barcode

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Cross-Filtering and Referential Integrity

Honeydew supports cross filtering similar to PowerBI.

The following table helps translate PowerBI settings to Honeydew:

PowerBI Referential IntegrityPowerBI Cross-FilteringHoneydew Join Type (from many to 1)Honeydew Cross-Filtering
No (PowerBI default)Single (PowerBI default)LEFTOne-to-many
NoBothLEFT (Honeydew default)Both (Honeydew default)
YesSingleINNEROne-to-many
YesBothINNERBoth

Note that that the default relationship settings in Honeydew are different than default PowerBI settings.

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Limitations

DAX limitations on a Direct Query apply to a Honeydew connection.

Logic that would otherwise require advanced DAX can be built directly in Honeydew instead. That includes complex multi-step calculations, filtered or partial metrics, calculated fields, time intelligence and other advanced features.

Every Honeydew metric is consumable with PowerBI in a Direct Query mode.

Refer to relation modeling on how to model 1:1 or many:many relations which are not directly supported. A 1:1 PowerBI relationship with a preset cross-filtering direction typically maps to a Honeydew 1:many relation with same direction.

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Import

PowerBI can import data from dynamic datasets in Snowflake.

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With a VIEW or a TABLE

Dynamic datasets can be set up deployment to Snowflake.

The resulting VIEW or TABLE can be used for a Data Import.

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With Snowflake Native Application

Create a blank query, and open advanced query editor to write the query below:

To read from a dynamic dataset:

let
    Source = Value.NativeQuery(
            Snowflake.Databases(
                "SnowflakeHost.snowflakecomputing.com",
                "VirtualDataWarehouse",
                [Role="Role"]
            ){[Name="Database"]}[Data],
            "
            CALL SEMANTIC_LAYER_ENTERPRISE_EDITION.API.SELECT_FROM_DYNAMIC_DATASET(
                'workspace',
                'branch',
                'dataset');
            ",
            null,
            [EnableFolding=false]
    )
in
    Source

Or create an ad-hoc semantic query:

let
    Source = Value.NativeQuery(
            Snowflake.Databases(
                "SnowflakeHost.snowflakecomputing.com",
                "VirtualDataWarehouse",
                [Role="Role"]
            ){[Name="Database"]}[Data],
            "
            CALL SEMANTIC_LAYER_ENTERPRISE_EDITION.API.SELECT_FROM_FIELDS(
                -- workspace / branch
                'workspace', 'branch',
                -- domain (can be NULL)
                'domain',
                -- dimensions - can be ad-hoc expressions
                ['entity.attr', ...],
                -- metrics - can be named or ad-hoc expressions
                ['entity.metric', 'SUM(entity.measure)', ...],
                -- filters - can be named or ad-hoc expressions
                ['entity.filter', 'entity.attr > 0', 'entity.name like ''%cheese%''', ...]
            );
            ",
            null,
            [EnableFolding=false]
    )
in
    Source

Given Snowflake connection parameters (host, warehouse, role and database) and Honeydew workspace, a working branch in it (usually would be prod), and a dynamic dataset dataset.

This calls a stored procedure to retrieve dynamic dataset data to PowerBI.

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