Excel — это эффективное и универсальное средство для любых задач аналитики. Объедините его с Power BI, чтобы получить широкие возможности аналитики данных и создания визуализаций. Без труда собирайте, формируйте, анализируйте и изучайте ключевые бизнес-данные, применяя новые подходы и затрачивая меньше времени благодаря объединению этих приложений.
К вашим услугам новые мощные возможности, для работы с которыми можно использовать имеющиеся навыки
Оперативно создавайте впечатляющие интерактивные информационные панели. Все используемые запросы, модели данных и отчеты можно без труда перенести в Power BI. Вам не нужно изучать новое приложение или язык.
Автоматизация обновления данных одним нажатием
При открытии информационной панели вы мгновенно получите требуемые данные. Вам не нужно выполнять никаких дополнительных действий. Настройте ручное или автоматическое обновление данных Power Pivot с любой частотой.
Используйте данные множества книг в одном представлении и предоставляйте к ним общий доступ
Выводите на информационную панель Power BI различные сведения, диаграммы и таблицы, а также другие объекты совместно с данными из других источников, подключив книги Excel к Power BI.
Самостоятельная визуализация данных
Воспользуйтесь наглядными интерактивными визуализациями и функцией распознавания вопросов, заданных с использованием естественного языка. Эти преимущества доступны благодаря возможности использовать модели данных Excel в отчетах Power BI. Расширяйте потенциал сотрудников независимо от их возможностей и опыта (даже новых пользователей Excel), чтобы они могли изучать ваши аналитические сведения и получать собственные.
Добавьте в свои модели расширенные средства аналитики
К вашим услугам расширенные настраиваемые визуализации, а также средства моделирования и прогнозирования для сложных рабочих процессов аналитики в Power BI. Эти преимущества обеспечивает выполнение скриптов R и использование пользовательских визуальных элементов, созданных с помощью R.
Сохраняйте гибкость таблицы
Без труда работайте с данными Power BI в Excel для ad-hoc-анализа. Одним щелчок подгружайте свои модели данных напрямую из Excel для создания сводных таблиц и диаграмм с ценными сведениями.
Три шага для начала работы
1. Скачивание Power BI Desktop
Создавайте впечатляющие интерактивные отчеты на основе данных Excel. Холст с поддержкой перетаскивания и более 85 современных визуальных элементов помогут вам наглядно представить свои данные.
2. Получение пробной версии Power BI
Публикуйте отчеты для других пользователей с помощью Power BI Pro без необходимости в дополнительной сложной настройке. Получите полное представление о своем бизнесе. Обеспечьте централизацию всех данных, включая отчеты и объекты Excel.
3. Анализ данных Power BI с помощью средств Excel
Просматривайте свои наборы данных Power BI и работайте с ними в Excel с помощью функции анализа в Excel. Получайте полезные сведения на основе своих данных с помощью таких средств Excel, как сводные таблицы, диаграммы и срезы. Все эти средства доступны в Power BI.
Connecting your Excel dataset to Power BI is a piece of cake. You won’t have to set up complex configurations or install any plugins or third-party tools. However, this topic includes more than just getting data from a workbook. You may need to load a transformed dataset, connect your Excel file stored on OneDrive or SharePoint to Power BI, and so on. This is why we created this Excel Power BI ultimate guide to make your life easier.
How to use Power BI with Excel
We decided to split our tutorial into two high-level sections:
- Connecting Excel to Power BI desktop
- Connecting Excel to Power BI service
Each of these sections will contain answers to mostly the same questions, such as how to get data from a local Excel file or how to export data from Power BI to Excel.
The Power BI desktop app provides a wide set of connectivity options.
For example, we’ve blogged about connecting Google Sheets to Power BI. Excel is undisputedly the most common data source. Let’s start with it.
Local Excel connect to Power BI dataset
On the Home ribbon, click “Excel Workbook“, or you can select the respective option on the home screen.
Select the Excel workbook stored on your device and then, once the Navigator window opens, select the worksheet that contains the necessary data. Click “Load“.
Your dataset will be imported from Excel to Power BI.
Transform data before loading
Let’s say, you don’t need to import an entire sheet from Excel to Power BI. Or you may want to rename columns, exclude some rows, or otherwise transform the dataset for import. In this case, once you’ve selected an Excel workbook and worksheet, click “Transform Data“.
The Power Query Editor will open, where you can choose and remove columns/rows, group values, change data types, etc. Check out our Power Query Tutorial for more.
For example, let’s keep a few columns that we’ll use for our Power BI report:
Once you’re done with the data transformation, click “Close & Apply” to load the dataset to Power BI.
And here is the result.
Connect Power BI desktop to Excel OneDrive
Power BI does not provide a preset connection to OneDrive. However, there is a workaround to connect to your Excel workbook stored on OneDrive.
Go to your OneDrive, right-click on the Excel workbook to import, and select Embed.
Click the “Generate” button to generate an HTML code for embedding.
You should get a code like this:
<iframe src="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=EC24D8340D235C65&resid=EC24D8340D235C65%213421&authkey=AHVqD34kq_kqoHP&em=2" width="402" height="346" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Copy the values from resid and authkey parameters and insert them into the following boilerplate:
https://onedrive.live.com/download?resid={replace-with-your-value}&authkey={replace-with-your-value}&em=x&app=ExcelYou should get the following URL string:
https://onedrive.live.com/download?resid=EC24D8340D235C65%213421&authkey=AMVqX25kq_kwoJK&em=2&em=x&app=Excel
Now get back to Power BI and select Get data => Web
In the open window, insert your URL string and click “Ok“:
Confirm your connection to OneDrive and welcome the Navigator window, where you can select the sheets to import.
The next steps you already know.
Export data from Power BI to Excel
You can export your reports’ data from Power BI desktop in CSV format. For this, click the three dots in the top right corner of a report and select “Export Data“.
After that you’ll need to select a folder where you want to save a CSV file with your data. That’s it. In Power BI service, you can export reports as Excel files. We’ll cover this part later.
Connect to Power BI dataset from Excel as a mediator
Before talking about Power BI service, we’d like to highlight that you can use Excel as an intermediate point to load data from multiple sources to Power BI. The list of Power BI supported sources is long enough, but it lacks such apps as Shopify, Airtable, Pipedrive, and many others. In this case, you can connect your source to Excel, and then connect Excel to Power BI:
Your data source => Excel => Power BI
We explained the details of such a route in the blog post Shopify to Power BI. To summarize, you can use Coupler.io, a tool for integrating apps and sources with Excel, Google Sheets, or BigQuery. Each integration setup starts includes three steps:
- Source – you need to select a source app, for example, Harvest, connect to it, and select a data entity for export.
- Destination – you need to select Excel as a destination app, connect to your Microsoft account, and choose an Excel file on OneDrive to load data to.
- Schedule – you need to enable the Automatic data refresh and configure the frequency you want.
Here is what an importer can look like:
After that, you need to connect your Excel file to the Power BI desktop, as we described above, or to Power BI service, as we’ll describe next.
Check out the available Excel integrations.
Connect Power BI service to Excel
In the online version of Power BI, click a magic button “Get data“, then “Files“.
Then will be able to load data from Excel files stored locally on your device, or in a cloud service, including OneDrive and SharePoint.
Important note:
The data in your Excel workbook must be formatted as a table, otherwise you will get the following error when importing or uploading files to Power BI.
To format a range as a table, open your Excel file, select the range of cells that contain your data and press Ctrl + T. Click “OK” to confirm the creation of a table.
Do the same for ranges in each worksheet.
Now you’re ready to import data from Excel to Power BI service.
Local Excel file to Power BI service
Click the “Local File” button, select an Excel file from your device, and choose how to connect the chosen workbook to Power BI:
- Import Excel data into Power BI (data refresh is available)
- Upload your Excel file to Power BI (no data refresh)
Select the desired option and welcome your data in Power BI. By the way, here is what the Excel file looks like if imported and uploaded to Power BI.
Excel OneDrive to Power BI service
You can load data from OneDrive Personal and Business accounts. Let’s go with the Business one for this example. Click the respective option and select the Excel workbook. Then click “Connect“.
Choose how to connect to your Excel workbook:
- Import Excel data into Power BI (connect a workbook to Power BI with automatic data refresh)
- Connect, manage, and view Excel in Power BI (bring a workbook to Power BI)
Here is what the Excel OneDrive file looks like if imported and connected to Power BI.
Power BI SharePoint Excel
Now it’s time for another cloud storage – SharePoint. Click the respective option and enter the URL of your SharePoint site. For example:
https://marbrecords.sharepoint.com/sites/MBrecords2
Note: Use the URL that corresponds to your homepage of your SharePoint site, like this:
Then choose the folder where your Excel workbook is stored, select the file and click “Connect“.
Then choose how to connect to your Excel workbook. The options are the same as for connecting Excel OneDrive to Power BI:
- Import Excel data into Power BI (connect a workbook to Power BI with automatic data refresh)
- Connect, manage, and view Excel in Power BI (bring a workbook to Power BI)
Export Power BI service to Excel
We promised to show how you can export report data from Power BI service to Excel file. Open your report, click the three dots, and select “Export data“.
Then you can choose the format for your export file: CSV or XLSX (Excel).
Click “Export” to download the file to your computer.
How often is the Excel to Power BI connection refreshed?
Power BI updates data from the connected Excel files, both local and cloud, on a one hour basis. To manually refresh the dataset, click the “Refresh” button on the Home ribbon.
In case of Power BI service, you’ll need to refresh the connected dataset. Here is the button.
Excel to Power BI or another data visualization tool
Power BI easily connects to Excel and many other data sources. However, this data visualization tool has its limitations and flaws. At the same time, you can consider an alternative, such as Google Data Studio or Tableau. These tools integrate seamlessly with Google Sheets, so, with Coupler.io, you’ll be able to synchronize data from your Excel workbook with Google Sheets. Choose the best dataviz tool for your project and good luck with your data!
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One of the most common ways to collect and maintain data in organizations is through Excel sheets. But getting deeper insights from Excel may not always be possible, especially when you are dealing with massive volumes of data. To remedy this, you can use data visualization tools such as Power BI.
You can easily set up the Power BI Excel connection and start making attractive reports and dashboards. Using the simple UI, you can import data from your excel files and begin designing your reports. Power BI has a huge collection of charts, graphs, etc that can be customized according to your business needs.
In this article, you will learn how to effectively set up the Power BI Excel connection in 5 easy steps.
Table of Contents
- What is Power BI?
- Key Features of Power BI
- What is Excel?
- Key Features of Excel
- What are the benefits of setting up Power BI Excel Integration?
- What are the Steps to Export data from Power BI to Excel?
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 1: Extract Data
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 2: Prepare Your Data
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 3: Generate Your Report
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 4: Format Your Report
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 5: Save Your Report and Publish to Power BI Service
- How to Connect to Power BI Datasets with Analyze in Excel?
- Steps to Establish Power BI Excel Connection
- Limitations of Analyze in Excel
- What are the Limitations to Importing an Excel Workbook in Power BI?
- Conclusion
What is Power BI?
Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence tool that transforms data from a variety of data sources into interactive dashboards and BI reports. The Power BI suite offers multiple software, connectors, and services Power BI Desktop, Power BI services based on SaaS, and Power BI mobile apps available on a variety of platforms. This set of services is used by business users to consume data and create BI reports.
Key Features of Power BI
- DAX Functions: The DAX function is a Data analysis expression included in PowerBI. These analytic functions are predefined codes for performing analytics-related operations on your data. Currently, there are about 200 functions in the PowerBI function library.
- Data Security: Power BI Protects your data with industry-leading data security features such as sensitivity labeling, end-to-end encryption, and real-time access monitoring.
- Flexibility: Power BI allows you to extract data from a variety of sources. For instance, you can easily set up the Power BI Excel Connection and visualize excel data in Power BI. From On-premise to Cloud-based databases, structured to unstructured data Power BI allows you to work with a broader range of datasets.
- Data Filteration: In Power BI, you can create data subsets from several databases and work only on the filtered data that has contextual relevance.
What is Excel?
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft to organize and record data in a tabular format. Launched in 1985, Microsoft Excel is a widely used Spreadsheet software in businesses worldwide allowing you to organize and manipulate data through formulas in columns and rows. MS Excel is loaded with functionalities to perform several operations such as calculations, pivot tables, graph tools, etc.
Compatible with Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, MS Excel is included with the MS Office Suite. It is typically used by firms to record, organize and analyze financial data. MS Excel also offers VBA programming that can assist you in automating repetitive tasks.
Key Features of Excel
- Conditional Formatting: MS Excel allows you to apply formats to a cell or range of cells, and have that formatting change depending on the value of the cell or the value of a formula.
- Built-in Formulae: MS Excel provides you with basic and advanced built-in formulae for sum, average, minimum, etc. You can use formula auditing to graph or trace the relationship between cells and formulas with blue arrows. You can track precedents (cells that provide data for a particular cell) or the cells that depend on the value of a particular cell.
- Data Protection: Excel spreadsheets can be password protected on your laptop or PC. MS Excel also provides a robust system to recover data.
- Data Sorting & Filtering: You can easily perform the basic data sorting and filtering operation on your data in excel. MS Excel also provides Advanced filtering options for complex criteria.
What are the benefits of setting up Power BI Excel Integration?
Setting up the Power BI Excel Integration can help assist you in the following aspects:
- Deal with large volumes of data: Power BI has great compression capabilities for Microsoft Excel and text / .csv files that allow you to view, analyze, and visualize large amounts of data that cannot be opened in Excel. Most computers have a hard time opening a 300MB .csv file, which makes it difficult to analyze and report in Excel.
- Analyze Trends Quickly: Analyzing trends with Power BI is very easy. With built-in time intelligence analysis features, it only takes a few seconds to view massive amounts of data. You can see data by various dimensions and attributes, including date and time dimensions.
- Share your Reports: You can now publish to a secure Microsoft cloud service called Power BI Service and automate basic data updates. Just click Publish in the upper-right corner of the Power BI home feed. You can then easily share these reports with your colleagues and collaborate with them.
- Visualization Made-Easy: The great thing about Power BI is that with basic design ideas, it allows you to easily create something visually appealing and neat. Drag-and-drop functionality, easy resizing, and copy and paste make it feel like you’re at home for those familiar with the Microsoft Office suite.
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What are the Steps to Export data from Power BI to Excel?
Power BI provides a beginner-friendly interface to quickly load data from Excel and start visualizing it. To begin setting up the Power BI Excel Integration, ensure that you have Power BI installed on your system. If not done already, you can download Power BI Desktop. You can start building the Power BI Excel Integration by following the simple steps given below:
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 1: Extract Data
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 2: Prepare Your Data
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 3: Generate Your Report
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 4: Format Your Report
- Power BI Excel Connection Step 5: Save Your Report and Publish to Power BI Service
Power BI Excel Connection Step 1: Extract Data
- Step 1: For this Power BI Excel Connection article, you download a sample Financial Excel Workbook. You can also work with any of your Excel workbooks.
- Step 2: Open Power BI Desktop. Navigate to the Home ribbon and click on the Excel option present in the Data section.
- Step 3: Go to the folder where you have saved your workbook and click on the Open button after selecting the file.
Power BI Excel Connection Step 2: Prepare Your Data
Now, a Navigator window will pop up on your screen. It displays an overview of the data so you can be sure that the range of the data is correct. For instance, all the numeric data types are shown in italics. Navigator allows you to transform your data before loading it. Transforming the data can often assist you in creating visualizations that are easier to understand. Follow the steps given below to perform various transformations:
- Step 1: Check the box next to Financials and click on the Transform Data button.
- Step 2: In the given sample data, values of units sold in decimal don’t make sense. Hence, you can transform it into whole numbers. Select the Units sold column and navigate to Transform Tab > Data Type > Whole Number. Click on the Replace current option to change the data type.
- Step 3: To make the segments easier to observe in the visualizations, later on, you can change its format to uppercase. To do that, select the Segments column and navigate to Transform tab > Format > UPPERCASE.
- Step 4: You can shorten the Month Name Column header to Month by just double-clicking the Month Name column, and renaming it to just Month.
- Step 5: For this sample data, it is assumed that the Montana product was discontinued last month, so you can filter this data from your report to avoid confusion. To do that, go to the Product column. Click on the dropdown and clear the box next to Montana.
You can now observe that each transformation has been added to the list under Query Settings in Applied Steps.
- Step 6: Since your data is now prepared, you can go to the Home tab and save the modification by clicking on the Close & Apply option.
You can also notice that Power BI has recognized various filed such as Sales, Discounts, etc of numeric data types by placing a Sigma symbol. It has also denoted the Date field as a Date time entity by placing a Calendar icon.
Power BI Excel Connection Step 3: Generate Your Report
After the data preparation step of the Power BI Excel Connection, you can now move toward creating your reports. To do that, follow these simple steps:
- Step 1: Go to the Insert ribbon on the top, and click on the Text Box option. You can now type the title for this report as “Executive Summary – Finance Report”.
- Step 2: Select the text you typed and set the font size to 20 and bold. You can also resize the box for the text to be in one line.
- Step 3: To create a line chart to see which month and year had the maximum profit, go to the Fields pane. Drag the Profit field to a blank area on the report canvas. You will notice that Power BI displays a column chart with one column, Profit.
- Step 4: Similarly, drag the Date field. You now will see the profit columns for 2 years.
- Step 5: To view profits for each month, go to the Fields section of the Visualizations pane. Click on the drop-down in the Axis value and change Date from Date Hierarchy to Date.
Now, Power BI will display profits month-wise.
- Step 6: You can change the bar chart to a line chart from the Visualization pane.
- Step 7: To see which country had the highest profits, drag the Country field from the Fields pane to a blank area on your report canvas to create a map. Then, drag the Profit field to the map.
- Step 8: You can also find out which companies and segments to invest in. To do that, first, you can create some space by dragging the two charts you’ve built to be aligned side by side in the top half of the canvas.
- Step 9: Click on the blank area in the lower half of your report canvas and select the Sales, Product, and Segment fields from the Fields pane. After you observe a chart, you can drag it to fill the space under the two upper charts.
- Step 10: A slicer is an effective tool for filtering report page visual elements for certain selections. In this case, you can build two different slicers to narrow down the performance for each month and each year. The slicer uses the date field of the original table. You can drag the Date option from the Fields pane to the blank area on the left of the canvas.
- Step 11: Now, select Slicer from the visualization pane. You can also drag the ends to filter, or select the arrow in the upper-right corner and change it to a different type of slicer.
Power BI Excel Connection Step 4: Format Your Report
After preparing the basic report in the 3rd step of Power BI Excel Connection, you can start modifying its format for better visualization:
- Step 1: You can change the theme to Executive from the View pane.
- Step 2: You can also make specific changes to your graphs and charts individually in the Format tab of the Visualizations pane. Select Visual 2 (profits by month & year graph) and change the title text in the title section to “Profit by Month and Year” and Text size to 16 pt with the Toggle Shadow set to On.
- Step 3: Similarly for Visual 3, change the Theme to Grayscale in the Maps section. Like Visual 2, change the title Text size to 16 pt with the. Toggle Shadow set to On for both Visual 3 & 4.
- Step 4: For Visual 5, go to the Selection controls section & toggle the “Select all” option to On. In the Slicer header section, set the Text size to 16 pt.
- Step 5: You can also add a background for the title. For that, go to the Insert ribbon on the top and navigate to Shapes > Rectangle. You can place the rectangle at the top of the page, and stretch it according to the width of the page and the height of the title.
- Step 6: Go to the Format shape pane, in the Outline section and set the Transparency to 100%. You can also set the Fill color to Theme color 5 #6B91C9 (blue).
- Step 7: Now navigate to the Format tab and select Send backward > Send to back. For the title to appear clearly, select the text in Visual 1, the title, and change the font color to White.
- Step 8: Similarly, create and place the rectangle shape for Visuals 2 & 3. Here also, change the Transparency to 100%. & set the color to White 10% darker in the fill section. Finally, go to the Format tab & select Send backward > Send to back.
Power BI Excel Connection Step 5: Save Your Report and Publish to Power BI Service
Coming to the last Power BI Excel Connection Step, you can now save this report by going to the File menu and clicking on the Save option.
Power BI allows you to share your reports with your colleagues via its Power BI service. This allows Power BI account holders to interact with your report but they can’t save changes. To publish your report, follow these steps:
- Step 1: Go to the Home ribbon and click on the Publish option. If you don’t have a Power BI service account, you can opt for a free trial also.
- Step 2: You need to choose a destination such as My workspace in the Power BI service > Select.
- Step 3: Click on the Open ‘your-file-name’ in the Power BI option.
This will open your report in the browser.
- Step 4: Click on the share icon at the top of your report to share it with your colleagues. This completes setting up your Power BI Excel Connection.
How to Connect to Power BI Datasets with Analyze in Excel?
Another aspect of Power BI Excel Integration is bringing Power BI Datasets to Excel using the Analyse in Excel feature. You can then view and interact with them using PivotTables, charts, slicers, and other Excel features.
Steps to Establish Power BI Excel Connection
Follow these simple steps to easily set up the Power BI Excel Connection and analyze your data in Excel:
- Step 1: In the Power BI Service, go to the dataset or report you want to analyze in Excel. Click on the More options (…) next to the dataset or report name and select Analyze in Excel.
- Step 2: Another way for the Power BI Excel Connection is by opening the report and selecting Export > Analyze in Excel.
- Step 3: You can also select a dataset and then click on the Analyze in Excel in the menu bar of the Dataset details pane.
- Step 4: Using any of the above Power BI Excel Connection steps, the Analyze in Excel feature should install automatically. Finally, click on the Download button.
A new Excel workbook will be downloaded to your system that contains an OLAP connection to a Power BI dataset.
After opening the file, you may have to Enable Editing & Enable Content depending on your systems settings.
Limitations of Analyze in Excel
Though Analyze in Excel is an excellent feature for utilizing Power BI Excel Integration, there are some challenges that you might encounter:
- Some firms may have Group Policy rules that prohibit the installation of required updates for Excel. If you are unable to install the update, please contact your administrator.
- Row-level security (RLS) is supported for Analyse in Excel. RLS is applied at the data model level and to all users who access the data in the report.
- When using Analyze in Excel, you may get unexpected results or the function may not work as expected.
- Only PowerBI datasets that use import mode maintain hierarchies in Excel workbook analysis. When using Analyze in Excel, the hierarchy of PowerBI datasets created with DirectQuery or composite models is not preserved.
- While using Analyse In Excel, you cannot change the connection string to specify the locale after the workbook is generated.
- When data exceeds 2GB, an error message may be displayed. In this case, you can reduce the amount of data by applying a filter or using an XMLA endpoint.
- For guest users, Power BI data can’t be analyzed in Excel for datasets sent (from) by another tenant.
- Analyzing PowerBI data in Excel is a PowerBI service feature. It is not possible to analyze Power BI data in Excel using Power BI Report Server or Power BI Embedded.
What are the Limitations to Importing an Excel Workbook in Power BI?
While trying to set up the Power BI Excel connection, there are some challenges that you may face when you import an Excel Workbook in Power BI:
- External Connections to SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Models: Excel 2013 allows you to connect to SQL Server Analysis Services tabular models and create PowerView reports based on those models without having to import the data. This connection type is not currently supported when importing an Excel workbook into Power BI Desktop. Alternatively, you need to recreate these external connections in Power BI Desktop.
- Hierarchy: Power BI Desktop doesn’t support this type of data model object. Therefore, when you import an Excel workbook into Power BI Desktop, the hierarchy is skipped.
- Binary Data Columns: This data model column type is not currently supported by Power BI Desktop. The binary column of data is removed from the Power BI Desktop result table.
- Unsupported PowerView Elements: PowerView has some features that are not available in Power BI Desktop like Themes or specific types of visualizations (scatter plots using playback axes, drill-down behavior, etc.). These unsupported visualizations display unsupported visualization messages in the appropriate places in Power BI Desktop reports that you can edit or omit as needed.
- Named range using PowerQuery’s FromTable or M’s Excel CurrentWorkbook: Importing this named range data into Power BI Desktop is not currently supported, but is a planned update. These named ranges are now loaded into Power BI Desktop as a connection to an external Excel workbook.
- PowerPivot to SSRS: External PowerPivot connections to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) are not currently supported because this data source is not currently available in Power BI Desktop.
Conclusion
In this article, you have learned how to effectively set up the Power BI Excel integration. Power BI Excel connection enables you to easily import data from Excel and gets you started with your report generation in minutes. With a user-friendly interface and a vast collection of visualization features, you can create visually stunning and informative dashboards and reports.
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Tell us about your experience of setting up the Power BI Excel Connection! Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Power BI and Excel are longtime friends of each other, not only because Power BI components come from add-ins introduced in Excel but also because of how these two tools interact with each other from the Power BI Service. This post is not about using Power Query or Power Pivot components in Excel. This article and video discuss the interaction between Excel and Power BI through the service.
Power BI and Excel integration through the service allows the user to use Excel as their slicing and dicing tool while connected to a live Power BI dataset. On the other hand, you can pin a range of cells from an Excel document into the Power BI dashboard. Excel files also can be uploaded to the Workbook tab of the Power BI service. In this post, you will learn the below ways that Excel and Power BI interact with each other through Power BI Service;
- Analyze in Excel
- Publish to Power BI from Excel
- Import Excel into Power BI Desktop
Video
Analyze in Excel
Every company will find some users with very good experience and skillset in Excel. Excel users can still use Excel to connect to the Power BI dataset and use Excel features such as PivotTable and PivotChart to slice and dice the data. The connection to the Power BI dataset would be a live connection, which means whenever users refresh the Excel file, they will get the most up-to-date data from the Power BI service. Now let’s see how Analyze in Excel works in action.
Analyze in Excel from Power BI Service
You can initiate the Analyze in Excel from a Power BI Service report or a dataset. Log in to the Power BI service and click on the more options of a dataset (or a report). Click on the Analyze in Excel.
Power BI will generate an Excel file in OneDrive and create a connection from that Excel file to the Power BI dataset. You will get a notification when the Excel file is ready. (If you don’t have OneDrive for Business in your tenant, then clicking on Analyze in Excel will download the workbook to your local computer)
The opening of this file, by default, is in Excel online (web version). However, you can download the file and store it locally. Once you open the file, you will get a warning about the data coming from outside of this workbook (Power BI Dataset)
Once you click Yes, you will see an Excel workbook with a PivotTable, which is the data sourced from the Power BI dataset in the service. Analyze in Excel will use the same Power BI account username and password that you had access to the report from it (because the Power BI account is an Office 365 account).
Drag data fields into the slicing and dicing area (right under the fields pane), and you will see a result in PivotTable. This result is fetched live from the Power BI dataset in the Power BI service.
Implicit Measures won’t work in Excel.
Implicit measures are a measure that Power BI creates automatically. Power BI automatically applies auto summarization on numeric fields (that haven’t been part of a relationship). Behind the scenes, Power BI creates a measure for those fields; these measures are called Implicit measures. These are a measure that you can see a small Sum or Sigma icon beside their name in the Power BI Desktop.
The implicit measure cannot be used in the Analyze in Excel feature; if you try dragging them in PivotTable, you will see individual values instead of the aggregation or measure result.
However, if you create explicit measures (which are DAX measures created by you), similar to the screenshot below;
Then you can use them in PivotTable as a normal measure and see the correct result.
If you consider some users to use Excel as their front-end tool to connect to Power BI Models, You have to consider creating the Explicit measure.
Excel is Connected Live to the Power BI Model in the Service
The wonderful thing about the Excel connection to the Power BI Service is that the connection is Live. Live connection means Excel fetches the data directly from the dataset in the Power BI service. Anytime you refresh the Excel file, you get the most up-to-date data from the service. This feature is completely different from Export to Excel. The export to Excel option you see on visuals in the Power BI service only downloads data offline. However, Analyze in Excel is an online and live connection to the dataset.
You can check the connection properties in the Data tab, under the Connections, Properties section.
The Connection properties will have an Azure address in it with the ID of the dataset in the Power BI service. You can even use this connection in any other excel file to connect to the same dataset.
Get Data from Power BI Dataset
Another very similar approach to Analyzing in Excel is getting data from the Power BI dataset in Excel. If you have an Excel file and you want to do some data analysis on the data of a Power BI dataset, you can go to the Data tab, under getting Data, Under Power Platform, Choose Dataset.
This will show you the list of Power BI datasets that you have access to, and you can select to get data from any of those.
This will create a live connection to the Power BI dataset (Similar to a thin report).
Get Data from Power BI Dataflow
Using Excel, you can also connect to a Power Platform Dataflow and get data from it.
The Navigator window will show you both Power Platform dataflows (under Environments) and Power BI dataflow (under workspaces);
Why Analyze in Excel is Better than Export Data?
There are many reasons why Analyzing in Excel is a better option than exporting data. Let’s explore some of those here.
Analyze in Excel is Live Connection, Export Data is Offline, outdated
As soon as you export data from a Power BI report or dataset, you create a snapshot of the data then. If the report refreshes the next day, your exported data is no longer up-to-date. It is offline and outdated.
However, when you use Analyze in Excel. Excel’s data is fetched live from the Power BI dataset in the service. You can see that in the connection properties of Exel. You can check the connection properties in the Data tab, under the Connections, Properties section. The Connection properties will have an Azure address in it with the ID of the dataset in the Power BI service. You can even use this connection in any other excel file to connect to the same dataset.
Export Data is limited to 150,000 Rows; analyze in Excel Not!
Export data has a limitation on the number of rows. Analyze in Excel doesn’t. You are connected to the model live. It looks like a live connection to SSAS tabular; you can do whatever you want with the data.
The export is limited to 150K rows if you export to Excel and 30K rows for CSV files.
Export Data is limited to specific visuals and fields used in that visual
When you use Export Data, you only do it from a specific visual. And fields in that visual (or related fields to that) are exported.
When you use analyze in Excel, you will have access to all the tables, columns, and their calculated fields and measures in Excel:
Analyze in Excel is the Entire model: all tables and calculations
Export Data is not Secure. Analyze in Excel uses Power BI account credentials.
You might export data using an account that has access to everything. And then share the exported data file with someone who should NOT have access to the data. Because the security and the data are decoupled when you use the export data, then there is no security around it. You have to be careful to secure the exported data yourself.
However, when you use Analyze in Excel, You have to log in with your Power BI account and see the data only if you have access to it.
Analyze in Excel supports Row-Level Security.
Because users log in from Excel, when they use the Analyze in Excel feature will see only part of the data they are allowed to see. That means if there is row-level security enabled on the data. Users will see only their part of the data, nothing more. (as long as they don’t have Edit access on the dataset)
Analyze in Excel uses the concept of Shared Datasets
When you use the Analyze in Excel feature, you use the shared Power BI dataset from the Excel front end. Whenever the dataset refreshes, you have the new data. You will get the updates if the dataset gets a new table or field.
As the above screenshot shows, the Analyze in Excel works well with multi-layered architecture for Power BI development. The visualization layer can be Power BI reports, paginated reports, or even Excel.
Publish to Power BI from Excel
Not only can Excel read data from the Power BI Service, but also it can publish data into Power BI. This is possible in Excel 2016 editions or Office 365 editions of Excel. Once you click the Publish button on the File menu, you will see an option to Publish into Power BI.
Upload your workbook to Power BI
If you have an Excel workbook file, which you want to keep beside your Power BI objects (reports, dashboards, and datasets), then this option is for you. You can upload the workbook into the Power BI workspace using this option. Once the process is completed, The excel workbook will be accessible from the Power BI workspace and can be opened and edited in Excel online.
The Excel workbook, as mentioned, can be edited or viewed online.
Export workbook data to Power BI
Here comes the exciting feature; not only can you upload the excel file as a workbook, but also, you can export it as a Power BI dataset. To do this, you must have data in the Excel file as tables. The tables’ data will then be exported into a Power BI dataset from Excel (and it can be updated by updating the Excel file).
After these publish options, you will see a short message showing the publish process to the Power BI service;
These two options might not be very commonly used, but they certainly will bring an interesting aspect of integration between Excel and Power BI.
Import Excel into Power BI Desktop
We cannot discuss all Excel and Power BI integration options without mentioning the most important developer option. You can import an Excel model which includes a Power Pivot model into Power BI. The Import into Power BI doesn’t mean Get Data from Excel, it means the entire model, including all the tables, relationships, and calculations, will be imported into a Power BI report. The scenario above is a very handy option when you have an existing Power Pivot model in Excel.
Importing an Excel workbook has a very easy and straightforward process. The only important note in this process is that your Excel file should not be password protected.
Summary
In this article, you’ve learned methods by that Excel, and Power BI work together. Each of the modes of integration will give you some features. Analyzing in Excel will allow you to slice and dice the data model of the Power BI service easily from Excel through PivotTable and PivotChart. Excel can publish the entire workbook or the data part as a dataset into Power BI. Both of the features mentioned above will be highly well received by your business users who are good with Excel as a front-end tool. Last but not least, you can import an entire Excel Power Pivot model with all tables, relationships, and calculations into a Power BI report instead of re-creating it.
Trainer, Consultant, Mentor
Reza Rad is a Microsoft Regional Director, an Author, Trainer, Speaker and Consultant. He has a BSc in Computer engineering; he has more than 20 years’ experience in data analysis, BI, databases, programming, and development mostly on Microsoft technologies. He is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP for nine continuous years (from 2011 till now) for his dedication in Microsoft BI. Reza is an active blogger and co-founder of RADACAD. Reza is also co-founder and co-organizer of Difinity conference in New Zealand.
His articles on different aspects of technologies, especially on MS BI, can be found on his blog: https://radacad.com/blog.
He wrote some books on MS SQL BI and also is writing some others, He was also an active member on online technical forums such as MSDN and Experts-Exchange, and was a moderator of MSDN SQL Server forums, and is an MCP, MCSE, and MCITP of BI. He is the leader of the New Zealand Business Intelligence users group. He is also the author of very popular book Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star, which is free with more than 1700 pages of content and the Power BI Pro Architecture published by Apress.
He is an International Speaker in Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Business Applications Summit, Data Insight Summit, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday and SQL user groups. And He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Reza’s passion is to help you find the best data solution, he is Data enthusiast.
1. Цель
В нашей последней статье по Power BI мы изучили, как предоставить общий доступ к информационной панели Power BI. Сегодня в этом разделе по Power BI мы узнаем об интеграции Power BI и Excel и о том, как работает Power BI Excel.
Итак, приступим к интеграции Power BI с Excel.
Интеграция Power BI и Excel – с существующей информационной панелью
2. Microsoft Power BI и Excel
Power BI и Excel являются надежными спутниками друг друга не только на том основании, что сегменты Power BI происходят из включаемых файлов, представленных в Excel. Но и из-за того, что эти два приложения связаны друг с другом через службы Power BI. Этот пост не связан с использованием сегментов Power Query или Power Pivot в Excel. Этот пост посвящен взаимодействию между Power BI и Excel через панель администрирования.
А вы знаете, как работать с моделированием данных Power BI?
Комбинация Power BI и Excel через панель администрирования позволяет клиенту использовать Excel в качестве устройства для фильтрации сущностей, связанных с живым набором данных Power BI. Опять же, вы можете вставить область ячеек из архива Excel в информационную панель Power BI.
3. Интеграция Power BI и Excel
Одним из преимуществ Microsoft является надежная интеграция ее продуктов. Одним из примеров такого подхода является установка и интеграция. Интеграция Microsoft Power BI и Excel, позволяет сохранять скриншоты сводных таблиц, диаграммы, диапазоны ячеек и т. д., из ваших электронных таблиц в информационной панели всего в несколько щелчков мышью.
В этом примере я уже создал базовую информационную панель с инвентаризационным анализом с двумя визуальными элементами Power BI, которые показывают входящие и исходящие подразделения, страховой запас и целевые уровни.
a. Существующая информационная панель в Power BI
Существующая информационная панель в Power BI и Excel
Вместо того, чтобы проводить инвентаризацию запасов в Power BI, мы получили дополнительную выписку из нашей ERP, которая уже содержит выделенную информацию. Мы внесем это в данную информационную панель в Power BI. Ниже будет скриншот выделенного файла.
Существующая информационная панель в Power BI Интеграция с Excel
В Excel выделите таблицу, которую вы хотите добавить в Power BI, и щелкните на значке булавки, чтобы присоединит его к Power BI. Когда вы войдете в систему, мы можем выбрать пространство и информационную панель, на которой мы хотим закрепить наш отчет. Мы выберем Existing Dashboard and Inventory Analysis.
Давайте создадим информационную панель Power BI
Работа с Power BI и интеграцией Excel
Если вы вернетесь к своей информационной панели в Power BI, вы заметите, что таблица находится под двумя диаграммами.
Работа интеграции Power BI с Excel с примером в реальном времени
Итак, здесь мы говорили об интеграции Power BI и Excel. Надеемся, вам понравилось наше объяснение.
4. Вывод
Таким образом, в этой статье мы узнали об интеграции Power BI и Excel, а в конце этой статьи мы узнали основной аспект этой темы.
