Why Power BI Chokes on Time Entry Data—and How to Fix It Without Rebuilding
In professional services, time is everything. It fuels billing, profitability, and performance tracking. But here’s the rub: the very data that keeps the business running—detailed time entries by project, phase, task, and resource—often brings Power BI reports to a crawl.
The Problem
Billable hour data grows fast. Multiply timesheets by projects, phases, clients, employees, and tasks, and suddenly you’re dealing with millions of rows each quarter. Drop that into Power BI, and things get ugly:
Sluggish dashboards
Spinning loading wheels
Timeouts when filtering
Frustrated users
The more detailed your data, the worse it gets. Especially if every hour logged is treated as a line item in your reporting layer.
Why This Happens
Power BI wasn’t built to be a transactional data explorer. It thrives on models that are summarized, curated, and optimized. When you force it to visualize raw granularity, it spends more time calculating than presenting.
Most service firms don’t need every time entry on every report. They need answers to questions:
Which clients are most profitable?
Where are hours leaking?
Who’s over capacity?
The Fix (Without Starting Over)
You don’t need to rebuild your whole model. You just need to rethink how time data is shaped and served:
Pre-Aggregate in the Data Source
Use SQL or your data warehouse to group time entries before they hit Power BI. Daily or weekly summaries by client, project, and role often deliver all the insight without the lag.Use Aggregated Tables in Power BI
Build a secondary table that summarizes key metrics. Tie it to filters and visuals for high-speed dashboards, while keeping the detailed table hidden or drillable.Leverage Composite Models
Mix aggregated data for visuals with DirectQuery or Import for drill-throughs. Best of both worlds—speed up top-level views and preserve detail on demand.Optimize the Model
Trim columns. Use integers over text. Reduce cardinality. Implement star schemas. Every tweak helps Power BI breathe better.
Bottom Line
Power BI doesn’t choke because it’s weak. It chokes because it’s being asked to do the job of a raw data engine. For professional services, where time entry data grows dense and fast, the key is reshaping the data—not replacing the tool.
At Alluvium, we specialize in helping service firms fix slow, clunky dashboards without burning everything down. If your Power BI reports are struggling under the weight of time data, let’s talk.