August 1, 2025 · Alex Badiu
Power BI documentation From burden to breakthrough
1. The documentation problem that’s killing us
Who actually reads documentation? Be honest. When did you last read a full README file or product manual? Most of us skip straight to the good stuff.
Yet here we are, forcing ourselves to not only read, but write documentation that most of people most likely do not want to read.
The truth: Most of Power BI developers hate documentation. They avoid it, rush it, or do the absolute minimum. Then they wonder why projects fail and knowledge disappears when people leave.
Here’s what’s really happening. Developers think documentation steals time from “real work” like building reports. They jump into development eager to “show something”, but with no strategy or plan in mind. Clients don’t want to pay for documentation time but expect it to exist. So documentation becomes a last minute afterthought.
Sound familiar?
This creates a vicious cycle. Poor documentation leads to failed projects. Failed projects create more pressure to jump fast into development and “show something”. More pressure means even less time for documentation.
But what if documentation could be as easy as having a conversation?
2. The revolution: Second Brain meets AI
Traditional documentation is considered by some as broken. We all know it. You inherit a Power BI project and find either a 50-page Word document containing questionably relevant information (like a ChatGPT explanation of what each measure does) buried in SharePoint that’s six months out of date, or nothing at all.
Here’s what we’re missing. Besides those formal documentation snapshots discussed in our past articles (that should be in my view mandatory), where do your brilliant ideas go? Your quick fixes? Your lessons learned? They get scattered across sticky notes, random emails, and mental notes that vanish by Friday.
The result: You lose your best insights between projects. You reinvent solutions you already discovered. You spend time recreating knowledge that should be at your fingertips.
3. Enter the game changers
Tiago Forte’s CODE methodology changes everything:
Capture: Never lose a good DAX pattern or design decision again
Organize: Make your insights findable when you need them
Distill: Focus on what actually matters
Express: Reuse proven solutions instead of starting from scratch
Applied to Power BI: This becomes your intelligence system that is based on your daily discoveries and experience.
You should capture without pressure, but with purpose. That moment when you crack a complex problem? Capture it with full context:
- The solution (not just the formula)
- The why (business logic and reasoning)
- The when (project timeline and constraints)
- The how (implementation approach)
- The for whom (stakeholder and audience)
The performance optimization that saved 30 seconds? Keep it, tomorrow’s best practice starts with today’s small win.
[!Warning] The buffer zone approach: Don’t organize while capturing. Use an “inbox” system : capture first, classify later. This prevents decision fatigue and keeps ideas flowing.
The breakthrough comes from combining CODE with the PARA organizational method:
- Projects (active Power BI initiatives)
- Areas (ongoing responsibilities like governance)
- Resources (reference materials)
- Archive (completed work).
This strategic knowledge architecture should mirror how you actually work. Use an “inbox” approach: capture first, organize later to prevent decision fatigue.
Later, when you need formal documentation, your scattered notes become pure gold. Your daily observations instantly become professional documentation. Add dates to easily retrace actions, thoughts and timelines. Very useful for retrospective meetings.
Here’s where CODE becomes powerful for Power BI developers. You’re already capturing insights. But without the other three steps, these insights stay scattered and useless.
The traditional problem: You capture in isolation. No organization system. No way to distill patterns. No efficient way to express knowledge when deadlines hit.
The CODE solution for Power BI: Your daily discoveries become a searchable, structured second brain. But here’s where most people get stuck: the Organize and Distill steps feel like extra work.
This is exactly where AI changes everything. Claude doesn’t just help with the final documentation, it also transforms your raw captures into organized, distilled knowledge instantly. What used to take hours of manual organizing and distilling now happens in seconds.
4. The AI breakthrough
Remember the CODE methodology? Capture was easy; you were doing it anyway. Organize and Distill felt like work. Express meant starting from scratch each time.
Here’s the breakthrough: AI collapses Organize + Distill + Express into seconds.
You’ve captured six months of Power BI insights in your notes. Random observations about DAX performance, design decisions that worked, client feedback, solution patterns that saved the day. Traditionally, turning this into professional documentation would take hours of organizing, analyzing, and writing.
With Claude connected to your knowledge base: You describe what you need. Claude organizes your scattered thoughts, distills the key patterns, and expresses them as polished documentation. This isn’t just another fancy AI use case, it’s the missing piece that makes the entire CODE system work effortlessly.
The ecosystem that makes it possible:
[!TIP] Progressive distillation transforms raw captures: Level 1 captures everything, Level 2 highlights key insights during reviews, Level 3 extracts essential points, Level 4 creates reusable patterns. Each level adds value without losing context.
Obsidian becomes your knowledge center. Using templates eliminates blank page syndrome. You know exactly what you need to do. Smart search finds that DAX pattern you used six months ago. Graph view reveals connections between projects you never noticed. Properties track the context time, author, and the spark of inspiration that led to each solution.
Graph view Obsidian
Properties added to a template
[!IMPORTANT] Three-method retrieval ensures you find what you need: Search with keywords for specific solutions, navigate through structured folders when browsing, and use strategic tags (#bestpractice, #accelerators, #dax) applied after accumulating sufficient content.
GitHub preserves and evolves your knowledge. Version control means insights never disappear when people leave. Team collaboration multiplies everyone’s intelligence instead of keeping expertise isolated.
Claude transforms your raw captures into whatever you need: project documentation, client reports, training materials, or technical guides. The same scattered notes become multiple polished outputs, each tailored to its audience.
What used to be the hardest part of knowledge management, turning thoughts into structured intelligence, now happens faster than you can read this sentence.
5. The 60 second revolution
From nothing to standardized documentation in literally less than one minute
Here’s the breakthrough. Greg and I spent the last 6 months building one of the most complete Power BI documentation resources available for the community. 20 long and detailed blog posts. With shared pre-built templates, scripts, presentations, summaries, and best practices library. Real examples from real experience.
The Traditional approach until now was to spend days to create a documentation framework. The approach we’ll describe in this blogpost is to lower it down to seconds to generate and minutes to customize.
The workflow: Connect to our public GitHub repo → Tell Claude your need → AI generates template → Customize in Obsidian.
Want to create a full documentation template in a specific language? Connect to our public repository. Tell Claude what you want. Tweak until it matches your needs. Write it in Obsidian.
[!IMPORTANT]
From nothing to standardized documentation in literally less than one minute.
That’s the power of well-curated sources with detailed information. A bank of knowledge that delivers useful templates in seconds.
6. The multiplier effect
Now imagine mixing this with notes and ideas from other sources. I personally use Notion for quick captures. For example, I capture LinkedIn posts that resonate with me, or articles that spark ideas.
You’re not just increasing productivity. You’re upgrade to another level entirely.
Your methodology scales from individual insights to team systems:
- Atomic accelerators: Reusable DAX patterns and code snippets
- Molecular techniques: Combined approaches and methodologies
- Template libraries: Complete frameworks and best practices
- Collective intelligence: Patterns emerge that nobody could see alone
[!IMPORTANT]
Your knowledge compounds across projects. Your documentation gets faster to produce. Your solutions become more consistent. You never lose another brilliant insight.
7. Beyond documentation: Strategic advantage
This approach transforms you from a Power BI developer who builds reports into a strategist who builds knowledge systems.
You stop being reactive to client requests. You start shaping successful project outcomes. You anticipate needs before clients express them. You propose solutions based on proven patterns.
Junior developers access senior level patterns instantly
Complex projects get comprehensive frameworks in seconds
Knowledge gaps become learning opportunities with built in guidance
Team expertise compounds instead of staying isolated
[!TIP]
You already have a team…make the most of all their work and share everything.
8. The movement starts now
This isn’t just about better documentation. It’s about transforming how Power BI teams think, learn, and create.
Early adopters get sustainable competitive advantage. While others struggle with documentation overhead, or remembering in which folder they’ve put that best practice, or that PowerPoint presentation, or remembering the thing you were looking for is at page 72, you turn knowledge into acceleration fuel.
Your next steps:
Download Obsidian and set up a vault. Install Claude Desktop and test documentation generation based on the example shown with this blog post. Document one real existing project you are currently working on using this workflow. Measure the time savings and quality improvements.
9. Common questions
“This seems like more tools to learn”
It’s actually three tools you likely already know:
Obsidian/Notion: While these tools are actually revolutionary knowledge ecosystems capable of transforming how you organize and connect ideas (especially Obsidian), beginners can start by using them as note-taking apps with advanced search. The advanced features will reveal themselves as your workflow evolves.
GitHub: Essential for any serious Power BI professional. You only need to connect to our public repository in our case, no complex setup required.
Claude: You’ve used ChatGPT or Copilot before. With Claude it’s the same concept, different interface.
[!IMPORTANT]
The real shift isn’t learning tools, it’s adopting a knowledge-first mindset. You’re changing how you think about insights, not mastering complex software.
“What happens when AI gets things wrong?”
AI isn’t perfect, and that’s exactly why you should stay in control. Think of Claude as an expert consultant: it has brilliant insights, but you make the final decisions.
The process matters more than the final result. Review everything. Keep what works. Discard what doesn’t. Your expertise grows through this critical evaluation, not blind acceptance.
“How do we ensure quality control?”
Three-step validation:
- Review: Does this match my experience and standards?
- Test: Does it work in real scenarios?
- Track: Document what works and why for continuous improvement.
Keep only what you understand and agree with. Maintain clear records of your decisions. Quality improves as your judgment sharpens over time.
Your domain expertise combined with AI capability creates better results than either alone.
10. How to
Connect to our GitHub repository. Use our shared articles as starting points. Share your improvements, your experiments, your doubts.
1st thing first. You need to set up an MCP server to connect Claude Desktop to Obsidian or Notion.
Create an MCP Server to connect Claude with Obsidian or Notion. If you do not know how to set up an MCP Server, give Claude the following prompt:
Help me create an MCP server configuration to connect Claude Desktop with my Obsidian vault. Provide step-by-step instructions for setting up this integration.You can also follow the step-by-step instructions shared by Kurt Buhler
Now you can select the articles from GitHub and use the following prompt. Don’t forget to choose the language and output format you prefer by modifying the prompt:
I want to create a Power BI documentation template using the methodology and resources shared inside the connected GitHub repository.
**Documentation Requirements:**
- Language: **[English/French/other]**
- Format preference: [**Obsidian template/Word document/Confluence page/other]**
- Specific sections needed with examples: [list key areas like data model, DAX patterns, governance, user guides, etc.]
**Output Format:**
Provide a complete Obsidian note template with:
- Obsidian properties (date, status, project info, contributors, etc.)
- Structured sections with clear headings
- Placeholder text showing what content should go where
- Relevant tags following the repository's tagging strategy
- Cross-references to related concepts and templates to be built
Make this template ready to use immediately for documenting my Power BI project.
CRITICAL INSTRUCTION: Use ONLY the information, structure, style, and approaches found in the provided GitHub documents as your source of inspiration. Do not add any external knowledge or generic templates.Use the documentation template created in Obsidian/Notion.
Use it on a project.
Improve it. Share your results !
You can find an example of the generated template here
[!TIP]
A markdown generated template will be added in the repository as an example.
Help build the future of Power BI documentation.
Conclusion
The traditional approach: Documentation as necessary burden
The new reality: Documentation as strategic weapon
The future belongs to organizations that capture, organize, and leverage knowledge effectively. Our blog series plus GitHub resources plus AI tools create an unprecedented opportunity.
Your Power BI documentation can become a strategic asset instead of a time sink.
The revolution starts with you.
Join us. Build the future. Transform how Power BI teams work. Because documentation this powerful changes everything.