Forum Discussion
Automate
Anonymous
It depends... You old data will disappear if you overwrite your "old" old data in the excel Sheet/Table with new data. If you just add data to your old (adding new rows in the excel sheet/table), you old data remains intact (in the sense that it still exists in your data model; whether your visuals will change depends on what measures you are using)
Here are some links you can read/watch:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-import-excel-workbooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=hIbqjqp-hdc&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=l_CgIOwSjmU&feature=emb_logo
Is it possible to link Power Bi to an excel sheet that gets updated daily ?
Anonymous
Sure, no problems.
I do however recommend you format the range of cells (data) in your Excel sheet as a table (ctrl + t). Power Bi will identify this table as an entity on import - so select it as your source - and any rows or columns added to your table in excel will automatically be picked up on refresh in PBI. You just have to be aware that if you add columns in the future, if you should check if any steps in you data transformation (for example if you've used "remove other columns", any new ones created migth get deleted on refresh - you might want to test this on a dummy table). Basically, be aware that if you make changes to the table structure in Excel, the steps applied in Power Query might affect these changes (so you migth have to edit your steps in the queries)
(As regards the refreshing of data daily, see my previous post)
Regarding my previous question. I am using all kinds of visualizations. Slicers, Multi-row cards, cards, Matrix tables and donuts. Once I am able to link Power Bi to an excel sheet and get daily updated feeds, will the old data in Power bi disappear ? Also do you have any step by step videos I can refer to ? Thanks.
Anonymous
It depends... You old data will disappear if you overwrite your "old" old data in the excel Sheet/Table with new data. If you just add data to your old (adding new rows in the excel sheet/table), you old data remains intact (in the sense that it still exists in your data model; whether your visuals will change depends on what measures you are using)
Here are some links you can read/watch:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-import-excel-workbooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=hIbqjqp-hdc&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=l_CgIOwSjmU&feature=emb_logo