Many people think that Power BI Desktop and Power BI service are two versions of the same application. In fact, they have different functions, and these differences determine who can view your dashboard, when the data is updated, and what breaks when the file is updated.
Task Division
According to Microsoft documentation, Power BI Desktop is a Windows application for building reports: connecting to over 100 data sources, cleaning data in Power Query Editor, and then modeling it with relationships and DAX. Power BI service is a cloud platform for publishing, sharing, and collaborating through workspaces, apps, dashboards, and refresh schedules.
Desktop can be downloaded for free. Its installation page only mentions Windows (Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 and above), without mentioning macOS. Mac users therefore need to ensure how it works before planning their team workflow.
What Happens When You Publish
The command is located at File > Publish > Publish to Power BI, or the Publish button in the Home ribbon. What gets uploaded is the data model as a semantic model named the same as the .pbix file, along with the report from the Report view. Both go into the workspace you choose.
Others do not receive your file. They open a link to the report in the service. Changes made to the report in the service are also not saved back to the Desktop file, so the .pbix file should still be considered the primary source.
Re-Publishing: Where Breakage Usually Occurs
Re-publishing replaces the old semantic model. Microsoft documentation notes several consequences:
| Changes in Desktop | Consequences in Service |
|---|---|
| Renaming or deleting columns or measures | Visuals in the service that use them may break |
| Changing the format of an old column (e.g., 0.25 to 25%) | Format changes are ignored |
| Adding new data sources | Login is required before the next scheduled refresh |
| Publishing a DirectQuery report over an Import report | Not supported |
If a refresh schedule already exists, the model refresh runs immediately after you re-publish. Before the replacement, Power BI displays a warning about how many workspaces, reports, and dashboards may be affected.
Refresh is Configured in the Service
The refresh schedule is configured in the service: open the workspace, select the semantic model, then Refresh > Schedule refresh. The limits depend on the license: up to 8 times a day for Pro, and up to 48 times a day for Premium per User and Premium or Fabric capacity. Certain on-premises data sources require a gateway.
There are two behaviors that often go unnoticed. After four consecutive failures, the schedule is automatically disabled. And after two months without anyone opening reports or dashboards from that model, the scheduled refresh is paused, and the model owner is notified via email.
Licenses Determine Who Can View
A free license allows you to create reports for personal use, but not for sharing or publishing to someone else's workspace. Sharing and collaboration require Power BI Pro or Premium per User. Recipients with a free license can only view if the content is in a Premium or Fabric F64 capacity workspace or higher. Make sure of this before sharing the dashboard across the office.
Workflow Summary
- Build and test the model in Desktop.
- Publish to the appropriate workspace.
- Set credentials and refresh schedule in the service.
- Before re-publishing, check the names of columns and measures already used in visuals.
A well-organized model facilitates all the steps above; discussions on relationships and filter directions can be found in the Power BI star schema article. If you prefer to see the flow directly, there is a explanatory clip.
Sources
- Microsoft Learn, Overview of Power BI
- Microsoft Learn, Publish datasets and reports from Power BI Desktop
- Microsoft Learn, Configure scheduled refresh
- Microsoft Learn, Power BI features by license type
- Microsoft Learn, Get Power BI Desktop