Death by 1,000 Queries: Migrating Bloated Power BI Reports to Fabric Direct Lake
Session Overview: We’ve all seen it: a Power BI report that started simple but grew into a monster of 50+ Power Query steps, complex merges, and “Data Refresh” timeouts. In the world of Big Data and Business Central, traditional Import Mode is hitting its limit. This session is a practical masterclass in report modernization. Ryan Paterson demonstrates how to dismantle “over-developed” PBIX files and rebuild them using a structured Fabric Lakehouse. We will explore how to move the heavy lifting out of the report layer and into a “Direct Lake” architecture that offers the speed of Import with the real-time scale of DirectQuery.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the “Performance Killers” in legacy Power BI reports, specifically focusing on inefficient Power Query transformations and redundant data modeling.
- Architect a structured “Medallion” Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric to serve as a high-performance foundation for Dynamics 365 data.
- Configure and deploy a Direct Lake semantic model that eliminates the need for scheduled refreshes while maintaining sub-second report responsiveness.
Speakers: Ryan Paterson
Recorded at: Community Summit NA 2026
Type: Education Session
Ability Level: 301 – Advanced
Primary Product: Microsoft Fabric
Tracks: Business Intelligence (BI) & Reporting, Data
Terms: All rights reserved by the speaker, Community Summit NA, and Dynamic Communities and cannot be reproduced or distributed without express written consent by the speaker and Dynamic Communities.
