All 52 questions

  1. For a one-to-many relationship between two tables, which SQL join would you use to get the same results as Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Aug 28 · Concept · Mid-level

  2. What can happen when a Power BI data model has a many-to-many relationship?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 2 · Concept · Mid-level

    Other ways it was asked
    • “What can happen when both tables in a Power BI data model have a many-to-many relationship?”

  3. What are dimensions and measures in Power BI, and how are they used?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 21 · Concept · Junior

    Other ways it was asked
    • “What is the difference between dimensions and measures in Power BI?”

  4. How do you validate and enforce consistent metric definitions in Power BI—for example, revenue, AOV, and active customer—across multiple reports and teams?

    Asked once · last asked Jun 25 · Tooling · Senior

  5. When a dashboard needs to compare multiple datasets with different schemas, how do you standardize metrics and visuals in Excel so trends remain comparable without confusing users?

    Asked once · last asked Jul 29 · Tooling · Senior

  6. How would you use Power Query and Power Pivot to join data and calculate monthly segment margins, and what choices would you make to optimize refresh performance?

    Asked once · last asked Aug 1 · Tooling · Senior

    Other ways it was asked
    • “How would you use Power Query and Power Pivot to do that join and monthly segment margin, and what refresh performance choices would you make?”

  7. What is a composite model in Power BI, and when would you use one?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 4 · Concept · Mid-level

  8. What factors affect semantic model performance?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 4 · Concept · Senior

  9. What is the best way to build multiple reports in Microsoft Fabric on a shared semantic model?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 9 · Design · Mid-level

  10. What challenges should you consider when migrating reports from Tableau to Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 9 · Scenario · Mid-level

  11. What limitations do you see in Power BI compared with Tableau for data modeling?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 9 · Concept · Mid-level

  12. In Microsoft Fabric, can you use a snowflake schema in Power BI while maintaining report performance, and how do modeling limitations affect that choice?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 9 · Scenario · Senior

  13. What GCP component would you use to define an ontology on top of your tables and data, and who should define it?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Tooling · Senior

  14. How are a knowledge graph and an ontology related?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Concept · Mid-level

  15. What steps do you follow at the data model level to improve a Power BI report?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 14 · Tooling · Mid-level

  16. How do you activate an inactive relationship in Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 15 · Tooling · Mid-level

    Other ways it was asked
    • “How do you activate an inactive relationship?”

  17. In Power BI data modeling, what does cardinality mean? Give an example.

    Asked once · last asked Sep 17 · Concept · Mid-level

  18. In Power Query, why should I remove the timestamp from a DateTime column and use only the date?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 17 · Concept · Mid-level

  19. What is a shared semantic model, and why is it required?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 17 · Concept · Mid-level

  20. How would you design the data flow behind a Power BI solution while keeping reporting logic out of the dashboard where possible?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 20 · Design · Senior

    Other ways it was asked
    • “Walk me through the data flow behind a Power BI solution you delivered, and how you kept reporting logic out of the dashboard where possible.”

  21. Several teams calculate the same KPI differently using data from multiple systems. How would you design a reusable dataset and Power BI semantic model so people can report consistently while still exploring the data themselves?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 23 · Design · Senior

  22. How would you make self-service data useful for teams building their own pipelines or Power BI reports without letting each team create a different version of the same KPI?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 23 · Design · Senior

  23. How would you model and calculate farm services per month when a farmer may have several service records and some are canceled, so the measure remains correct when users filter a Power BI report by region? How would you validate the model and measure?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 23 · Scenario · Senior

  24. If a farmer receives services in two regions after moving within the same month, why might regional farm counts sum to more than the overall farm count, and how would you explain this to a manager?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 23 · Scenario · Mid-level

    Other ways it was asked
    • “If a farmer receives a service in one region, moves to another region, and receives another service there in the same month, why might the two regional farm counts add up to more than the overall farm count, and how would you explain that to a manager?”

  25. How would you set up an SAP Analytics Cloud model and data pipeline from SAP BW to analyze and plan sales data by product, brand, and country?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Design · Senior

  26. Can you create three date dimensions in an SAP Analytics Cloud Planning model?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Tooling · Mid-level

    Other ways it was asked
    • “How can you configure multiple date dimensions in an SAP Analytics Cloud Planning model?”

  27. What types of hierarchies can you set up for a product dimension in SAP Analytics Cloud?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Concept · Mid-level

  28. Can you configure five parent-child hierarchies on a single generic dimension in SAP Analytics Cloud?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Concept · Senior

  29. How can you copy and aggregate data from an SAC planning model to an analytical model with fewer dimensions?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Tooling · Senior

  30. What happens to existing data actions when you add a new dimension and a new measure to a planning model?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Scenario · Senior

  31. What is semantic onboarding in SAP Datasphere, and when would you use it instead of building everything from scratch?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Concept · Mid-level

  32. What types of views are available in SAP Datasphere, and how do they differ?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Concept · Mid-level

  33. Why might views not appear when you create an analytical model in SAP Datasphere?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Scenario · Mid-level

  34. What are the requirements for building an analytical model in SAP Datasphere?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 24 · Concept · Mid-level

  35. If transformation logic is handled in CDS views, what role does SAP Datasphere serve?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 30 · Concept · Senior

  36. How would you choose a dataset's grain and model orders with multiple shipments in Power BI to prevent double counting?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Scenario · Mid-level

  37. How would you help a business team build its own Power BI reports from your dataset while keeping KPI definitions consistent and access appropriate?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Scenario · Senior

  38. If someone sums distinct farm counts across months and compares that with an annual total, how would you explain the difference and provide the correct annual measure?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Concept · Mid-level

  39. When building a reporting solution, how do you decide which logic belongs in the data warehouse or dbt and which should remain in Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Design · Senior

  40. If several reports need distinct counts of farms served by month, year, and region, would you precompute those counts in dbt or use a Power BI measure, and how would you avoid incorrect totals?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Scenario · Senior

  41. If a farm is served in January and February and receives service twice during the year, how should the monthly figures and annual total be calculated?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Scenario · Mid-level

  42. What are the differences between semantic modeling and dimensional modeling for a data warehouse, and when would you use each?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 1 · Concept · Mid-level

  43. How would you design row-level security (RLS) for a Power BI model serving thousands of users across dozens of retail chains, and what performance impact would you expect?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 2 · Design · Senior

  44. How would you create an ontology layer with business knowledge derived from multiple sections of a PDF document, including formulas or calculations?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 12 · Design · Senior

  45. What are the main challenges of working with SAP Datasphere?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 14 · Concept · Senior

  46. What relationship cardinalities can you define in Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Aug 28 · Concept · Junior

  47. What architecture and tools would you use in an SAP Datasphere project?

    Asked once · last asked Aug 28 · Design · Senior

  48. What are semantic models?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 4 · Concept · Junior

  49. What kind of data model would you prefer to begin with in Power BI?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 9 · Concept · Junior

  50. Can you explain ontology?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 10 · Concept · Junior

  51. Which healthcare entity would you use to illustrate a semantic model?

    Asked once · last asked Sep 19 · Concept · Mid-level

  52. How do users typically consume knowledge graph data: through BI tools such as Power BI or directly in Neo4j?

    Asked once · last asked Oct 23 · Scenario · Mid-level

More Data Modeling interview questions

How this list is made

Every question here was asked by a real interviewer in a real job interview that a candidate ran MeetAssist in. After the call, the interviewer's questions are pulled from the transcript. Practice sessions, tests, exams and anything that was not a job interview are dropped.

Questions are rewritten so they make sense on their own: names of people, employers and clients are removed, and speech-to-text mistakes are fixed. Small talk, logistics and questions about one candidate's own résumé are left out. Rephrasings of the same question are merged, and the count is the number of different interviews it came up in.

The interviews come from candidates who use MeetAssist, so they lean towards software, data and AI roles: the shares describe these interviews, not every Data Modeling interview. Answers to the most asked questions are written and checked by an editor; a "common mistake" is shown only when reviews of real answers in these interviews show it, with the count.

274 interviews, 168 candidates, Dec 2025 to Oct 2026. Updated every month with new interviews.