Power BI Report Server - Shared Data Sources for PBIX reports

Unfortunately no - although PBIRS shares the same underlying platform as SSRS and allows creation of Shared Data Sources in the web portal, those shared sources are only usable by traditional paginated reports and mobile reports, not by Power BI reports.

The reason is architectural. In SSRS paginated reports, the data connection can be separated from the report itself. Multiple .rdl reports can reference a single Shared Data Source hosted on the server, so if a database server name, credential, or connection string changes, it only needs to be updated once.

Power BI (.pbix) reports work differently. A PBIX file contains its own embedded data model, Power Query definitions, and connection information. When a PBIX report is published to PBIRS, the report maintains its own isolated data connection tied directly to that file. There is no native mechanism in PBIRS I'm aware of for multiple PBIX reports to reference a centralized Shared Data Source item.

If the goal is to centralize data logic and avoid maintaining identical queries across many PBIX reports, you might consider using SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular or a centralized semantic model. This provides functionality conceptually similar to SSRS Shared Data Sources.

The SSAS Tabular approach is likely the closest equivalent. You build and deploy a centralized tabular model to an on-premises SSAS instance, then connect Power BI Desktop (optimized for PBIRS) to it using a Live Connection. Multiple PBIX reports can then be created against the same live model. Any database credential or schema changes are handled centrally within SSAS rather than individually in each PBIX file.

Another option is to publish a “master” PBIX report containing the shared data model to PBIRS, then build secondary reports that connect live to that published semantic model or its underlying Analysis Services instance. This allows multiple reports to reuse a common dataset-like model, even though PBIRS itself does not support true Shared Data Sources for PBIX files.

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hth

Marcin