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Excel Integration with Power BI

Drill down to analyze and visualize your Excel data with Power BI.

Excel is a powerful and flexible tool. We have been using it for years to store custom data types, create business reports, and perform ad-hoc analysis as and when required. By combining Microsoft Excel with Power BI, you get broad data analytics and visualization capabilities.

Centralize your data, simplify it with queries you create, and share visual reports and interactive dashboards, enabling real-time access to your company numbers.

Data Visualization with Power BI and Excel

Combining Power BI with Excel maximizes the functions and capability of your beloved analytical applications. With Power BI in Excel, drill down into the data model from Excel through PivotTable and PivotChart.

Power BI Publisher for Excel has one step to Analyze in Excel that pins part of an Excel file into a Power BI dashboard while updating it. Both these features are easy to adopt by users having a good grasp of Microsoft Excel as a front-end tool. You can also upload your Excel files into the workbooks section of the Power BI service for deeper analysis.

It enables users to access Excel content from the same portal where Power BI reports live and then edit content with Excel Online. Lastly, you can import an entire Excel Power Pivot model, its connection sting, all tables, connection strings, and calculations into a Power BI report instead of re-creating it. Contact EPC Group today to inquire about:

  • Excel Power BI training
  • Excel Power BI consulting

Analyze in Excel

Analyze in Excel is an external tool used to connect Excel with Power BI Desktop. EPC Group is a leading Power BI consultant and business analytics service provider in the US. We will not only help you download and install it, but we will also train you to use different features such as dataset fields, database tables, Pivot tables, Power Query, Power View, and much more.

Every organization has some people with a good grasp and understanding of Excel. Such people can still use Excel features such as PivotTable and PivotChart to slice and dice the data even after connecting it with Power BI.

The Power BI and Excel integration is a live connection giving users additional refresh options. Thus, if a user refreshed an Excel file, the data in Power Bi will also get refreshed in real-time, thereby offering the most up-to-date data through the Power BI service. Let’s take a deeper look at how Analyze in Excel works in action.

Power BI Service to Analyze in Excel

Business analysts interested in using Analyze in Excel from the Power BI Service report need to log in to the Power BI service to open Power BI reports.

  • Click on “more options” on the top right-hand side to find ‘Analyze in Excel’.
  • First-time users need to install a plugin for the Office connection add-on.
  • After download, follow the instructions for set up.
  • To use Analyze in Excel, you need Azure Analysis Services OLE DB because the Power BI datasets are hosted in Azure.

You can hose the free version or paid service for Analyze in Excel. Export workbook and share it within the organization for broad data analytics with a paid version.

Power BI Publisher for Excel

Power BI Publisher is the add-on for Power BI integration with Excel, enabling two-way integration of Excel and Power BI. With Power BI Publisher, you can add a range of cells and charts in a dashboard for scheduled updates. Power BI publisher for excel enhances the functionality and efficiency of the business automation tools by connecting a data model in Power BI and drilling it down the same way you do this in Analyze in Excel.
Download the Power BI Publisher for Excel

How Power BI Publisher Works

Typically, you would not upload an Excel workbook into a service. However, if you want to have a single portal to share Excel workbooks with Power BI reports, this is your best option. You can open and edit an excel workbook uploaded into the Power BI service using Excel online, office 365, or the local version of Excel.

Select “Files” as your Data Source and then choose an “Excel file”. Then move on to Upload your Excel file into Power BI. You can view the uploaded excel file in the Workbooks tab of the Power BI service. You can view or edit the excel file using drag and drop aggregation.

Having the Excel workbook uploaded into the Power BI service gives you the ability to edit and interact with Excel Online. Using Power BI Publisher Excel, you can take snapshots of your important insights in Excel and Pin them in Power BI Dashboards. You can create business reports or business workflows by pinning pivot charts, illustrations, images, and text. Furthermore, you can use labels such as MIP labels or sensitivity labels for workbooks in Power BI to enhance the effectiveness of critical decisions.

Import Excel into Power BI Desktop

You can import an Excel model which includes a Power Pivot model into Power BI. It does not mean that you will acquire the data from Excel, but acquiring the entire data, including all the tables, relationships, calculations, and external connections imported into a Power BI report. This scenario can be a valuable option when you have an existing Power Pivot model in Excel. When importing an Excel workbook, it is necessary to keep in mind that your Excel file should not be password protected.

Contact EPC Group today to inquire about Excel Power BI training and consulting.

We are committed to improvising your decision accuracy by enhancing business intelligence capability to derive meaningful business insights. We will help you in every step of combining Power BI with Excel to perform effective data analytics. Streamline the entire business reporting process and enhancing the functionality of business analytics tools with the help of our Excel and Power BI experts.

Why Choose Us

Why Organizations Recognize EPC Group's Consulting Services as the Industry Leader
EPC Group wrote the book on SharePoint & Power BI
Microsoft Partner for 25+ Years
Over 4 million Office 365 users successfully migrated
200+ years combined senior team migration experience
Expertise migrating to Office 365 in every vertical
EPC Group's Chief Architect Errin O'Connor was on the original SharePoint and
Office 365 Beta teams

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