In this scenario SSDT is similar to Power BI Desktop in that it launches a private version of the tabular engine in the background which we can then connect to. The SSDT option works if you are using the internal workspace option. When you use Option 1 the External Tools option knows about the Live Connection and sends through the connection details for the underlying Live Connection.Ĭonnecting to SSDT (SQL Server Developer Tools) NOTE: You cannot connect to reports using Live Connections when using option 2. Or if you launch DAX Studio while Power BI Desktop is running you can see a list of the open pbix files in the PBI / SSDT option and connect to your file that way.

If you launch DAX Studio from there it will open with a connection already established to the data model in Power BI Desktop. If you have installed DAX Studio with the default All Users option, the installer will register DAX Studio with Power BI Desktop as an External Tool and you should see a DAX Studio icon in the External Tools ribbon in Power BI Desktop. There are a couple of different ways of connecting to Power BI Desktop. When you launch DAX Studio any other way the PowerPivot option will be disabled Connecting to Power BI Desktop When you launch DAX Studio from the Excel addin and the active workbook contains a PowerPivot model you will see the following option enabled and selected by default In order to be able to connect to a PowerPivot data model in Excel you must have the DAX Studio Excel Addin installed and you must launch DAX Studio from the Addin ribbon in Excel.

This is the only data source which has a requirement on the way in which DAX Studio is launched. There are a number of different connection options in DAX Studio the following guid will run through all the different data sources that you can connect to.

Power bi desktop developer tools