Created by Miki Yanagi, last modified by Corina C Larsen on May 24, 2021

External Tools in Power BI

ALM Toolkit is one of the external tools of Power BI. It is useful especially when publishing a large dataset to PBI Service. Since it only sends metadata, not the whole data, it is much faster than publishing a dataset.

Please note that when you change the dataset with ALM Toolkit, the data file is not downloadable from the Service.


  1. If you don’t have the ALM toolkit yet, download it from here: https://www.sqlbi.com/tools/alm-toolkit/

  2. On the Power BI Desktop, go to External Tools > ALM Toolkit
    Choose ALM Toolkit from the External Tools tab

  3. It will prompt you to enter the Target location. Under Target, in the "Workspace" box, enter "powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/(workspace name)". Enter the dataset name in the "Dataset" box.

    Enter Target info in the Connections dialogue box

  4. It will automatically start comparing the datasets. When there is the change, it will show as "Update" or "Delete" or "Create" on the Action column.
    ALM comparing datasets in the ALM working window

  5. Click "Validate Selection" 
    Validate Selection in ALM Toolkit Home tab

  6. Click "Update" to upload the change on the dataset on PBI Service
    Update in the ALM Toolkit Home Tab

  7. When it is done updating, the pop-up window will show "Success"
    ALM Toolkit Success window

Resource: http://alm-toolkit.com/HowToUse

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