Power BI has reached a new milestone—Power BI Desktop now supports opening and editing any semantic model built in Microsoft Fabric, including those with complex enterprise metadata like partitions and Azure Analysis Services sources.

Until now, models with multiple partitions or rich metadata required external tools or could only be accessed via limited interfaces. This change breaks down those barriers, empowering analysts and developers to manage and refine semantic models directly within Power BI, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity

Here’s what you need to know:

Write support for external tools: You can now use external tools to perform write operations directly on the semantic model running in Power BI Desktop. This opens up advanced modeling and editing capabilities without leaving your familiar tools.
Edit queries using TMDL view: Editing queries in partitioned tables or working with legacy data sources? The new TMDL (Tabular Model Definition Language) view makes it easier to modify and maintain your models within Power BI Desktop.
Refresh support for partitioned and tabular sources: You can refresh tables that use partitions or tabular data sources directly within Power BI Desktop. Note: In this initial release, the ribbon refresh option skips these tables — so use the right-click context menu in the Data pane to refresh them instead.
Credential prompts and data source settings: When connecting to data sources, you might be asked to enter credentials. Once provided, they're securely stored in your Power BI Desktop data source settings, so you don’t have to re-enter them each time.