pbiplintRules / Maintenance
Remove data sources not referenced by any partitions
What it checks
Data sources that no partition names and that appear nowhere in any partition's query text.
Why it matters
An unused data source is a connection string, and usually a credential, that the model still asks to have configured on every deployment, so the service keeps prompting for credentials to a source nothing reads. It is a leftover from a migration or a source that was replaced.
How to fix it
Delete the data source's file from the dataSources folder of the project.
Quirks
- Tabular Editor 3 CLI 0.5.2 did not report this rule when loading from TMDL, although it did from .bim; pbiplint follows the rule text.
- Power BI Desktop never writes data sources, so this rule matters only for hand-built or migrated models.