The binary file Power BI Desktop uses by default. Its contents are opaque to anything but Desktop, which is why teams wanting source control or Git integration choose PBIP instead.
Also called Power BI Desktop file.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains PBIX in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Power BI Desktop
A free Windows program where authors connect to sources, shape and model data, and design reports before publishing them to the Power BI service. Dashboards are not made here.
- CONTROL
Granting this on a securable gives all other permissions on it too, making it the most powerful SQL permission. At database scope that includes UNMASK and ALTER ANY MASK. Warehouse access through the Admin, Member or Contributor workspace roles carries it.
- Git integration
Connects a Fabric workspace, in its entirety, to one folder on a single branch of a cloud-hosted GitHub or Azure DevOps repo. Definitions of items can then be committed, versioned, branched and kept in sync with source control.
- PBIP
A project format for Power BI Desktop in which the report and model are saved as plain-text definitions in folders, not as a single binary file, making Git and CI/CD practical. Switching to or from .pbix happens only via Save as.
Related terms
- OneDrive refresh
Roughly every hour, the Power BI service checks the .pbix, Excel or CSV file that a semantic model and report came from, if it lives on OneDrive or SharePoint Online, and syncs any changes. Scheduled data refresh is different: it queries the underlying sources.