SharePoint Excel ingestion, Dataflow Gen2 vs shortcut + notebook CU efficiency

Hi bj132175​ , 

I wouldn’t assume that Shortcut + Notebook will automatically consume fewer CUs than Dataflow Gen2. It really depends on the file size/count, transformation complexity, and Spark overhead.

For smaller Excel files and relatively simple Power Query transformations, I’d generally stick with Dataflow Gen2 since it’s simpler and avoids bringing Spark into the picture.

If you’re dealing with a larger number of files or more complex transformations and the data is ultimately going into a Lakehouse, then Shortcut + Notebook/PySpark can be a better fit.

If CU consumption is the deciding factor, I’d benchmark both with the same workload. Spark startup and capacity usage can make the notebook approach more expensive for smaller workloads, so there isn’t really a blanket “shortcut + notebook uses fewer CUs” rule.