pbi-audit

Audit every DAX measure in your Power BI project — find what's unused, what's a helper, and what's actually powering your visuals.

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Prerequisite — save your report as a PBIP project

pbi-audit reads the open file format that Power BI Desktop writes when you save as a PBIP project (as opposed to the legacy .pbix binary).

To enable it:

1. Open Power BI Desktop
2. Go to File → Options → Preview features
3. Enable Power BI Project (.pbip)
4. Save your report: File → Save as and choose the .pbip format

This produces a folder structure that pbi-audit can read. .pbix files are not supported.

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What it does

Power BI projects accumulate measures over time. pbi-audit scans your PBIP project and classifies every single measure:

Status	Meaning
UNUSED	Not referenced anywhere — safe to delete
USED (DAX only)	Only called by other measures — a helper
USED (Visual only)	Directly driving a visual on a report page
USED (Visual + DAX)	Used in both visuals and other measures

It then generates an HTML report and/or an Excel workbook so you can review, filter, and act.

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Quick start

pip install pbi-audit
pbi-audit

That's it. A guided wizard walks you through the rest.

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Demo

Wizard walkthrough (text preview):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  pbi-audit  v0.1.0                                   ║
║                                                      ║
║  Audit DAX measures in a Power BI PBIP project.      ║
║  Scans your semantic model and report pages to       ║
║  classify every measure as:                          ║
║                                                      ║
║    UNUSED          — safe to delete                  ║
║    USED (DAX only) — helper/intermediate measure     ║
║    USED (Visual)   — directly used in a report       ║
║    USED (Both)     — used in visuals and DAX         ║
║                                                      ║
║  Outputs an HTML and/or Excel report.                ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

  Step 1/3 — PBIP Project Folder
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Type a path, or press Enter to open the folder browser:

  > C:\Projects\Store Sales

  ✓ Folder: C:\Projects\Store Sales

  Step 2/3 — Output Folder
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Where should reports be saved?
  Press Enter to save in the PBIP folder, type a path, or type "o" to browse:

  > 

  ✓ Output: C:\Projects\Store Sales

  Step 3/3 — Report Format
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  [1] HTML + Excel  (default)
  [2] HTML only
  [3] Excel only

  > 1

  ✓ Format: both

  Running audit
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ✓ 42 measures found
  ✓ 18 measures referenced in visuals
  ✓ Usage status computed

  Results
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    UNUSED          11
    USED (DAX only)  8
    USED (Visual)    9
    USED (Both)     14
    ────────────────
    Total           42

  Saving reports
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ✓ HTML  → C:\Projects\Store Sales\DAX_Measures_Audit.html
  ✓ Excel → C:\Projects\Store Sales\DAX_Measures_Audit.xlsx

  Done! Open the report(s) above to explore your measures.

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Report preview

Run pbi-audit against your project to generate the interactive HTML report — filter by status, search by measure name, and hover any formula to see the full DAX expression.

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Installation

Requires Python 3.9 or later.

pip install pbi-audit

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Usage

Guided wizard (recommended)

Run with no arguments — a step-by-step wizard will prompt for your PBIP folder, output location, and report format:

pbi-audit

Direct path

pbi-audit "C:\path\to\your_project.pbip"

Options

Argument	Short	Description	Default
path		Path to the PBIP project root	opens wizard
--output	-o	Where to save the reports	same as input
--format	-f	html, excel, or both	both

Examples

# Audit a specific project, HTML report only
pbi-audit "C:\Projects\Sales.pbip" --format html

# Save reports to a separate folder
pbi-audit "C:\Projects\Sales.pbip" -o "C:\Reports"

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Output

Two files are written to the output folder:

DAX_Measures_Audit.html Interactive table with status filters, table filter, and search. Hover any formula cell to see the full DAX expression.

DAX_Measures_Audit.xlsx Excel workbook with a Summary sheet (counts by status) and a Measures sheet with full detail, auto-filter, and frozen header.

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Expected project structure

pbi-audit works with the standard PBIP layout produced by Power BI Desktop:

my_project/
├── my_project.SemanticModel/
│   └── definition/
│       └── tables/
│           └── *.tmdl
└── my_project.Report/
    └── definition/
        └── pages/
            └── */
                ├── page.json
                └── visuals/
                    └── */
                        └── visual.json

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Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests are welcome — open an issue on GitHub.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.