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daveedd's avatar
daveedd
Helper II
4 years ago

Adding to embedded data

Hi all,   QQ.  I have a data set that is currently having to link to an Excel file, for frustrating reasons I can't get around.   I have a job which appends any new / updated records to that exce...
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daveedd's avatar
daveedd
Helper II
4 years ago

speedramps  yeah that's exactly what I have in place today.  I was just wondering if there was a way to neaten it up by having it all in power bi rather than excel

 

  • speedramps's avatar
    speedramps
    Super User
    4 years ago

    Hi again Daveedd

     

    If you are desperate to "neaten" things on Power Bi then read about "incremental-refresh"

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-overview 

     

    I prefer not to use Excel as a data source and do all the incremental refresh upfront on the source system.

     

    However, when clients email Excel files once, twice or more a day or week then I find the Power Flow is a great way of appending the files on SharePoint to one big file and then trigger a Power BI REST API to refresh. This gives you a lot more audit trail and control. You can keep a history of each file in a folder and send notification emails when the update has been successful or failed. Also if the client wants to retract any files then you can easily add that retrcation logic into a Power Flow but can't add it to a Power Bi incremental-refresh.

     

    Consider carefully, if you have a Power Flow in place today and it ain't' broke then don't fix it.

    I am an unpaid Power BI volunteer so please click the thumbs up if you like me helping you and click solved if I have solve your problem. 

     

    Warm regards, speedramps