BI Desktop / Power Query differences

[Anonymous]

Hi

I've been using, and teaching, both Power Query ("Get Data") from Excel and the Power BI Desktop in recent months. Great tools!

There's obviously a lot of overlap between their data merging/consolidating/manipulation capabilities, but I wondered if anyone had a definitive list of things that can be done on Power Query but NOT on the BI Desktop, or vice-versa?

At first I thought there were quite a few, but as I've got to know the products better, it's often about knowing where to look (where to find merge/append in BI Desktop wasn't at all obvious to me). The only two things I can cite as being available in BI Desktop but NOT in Excel Power Query are Natural Language Queries ("Ask me a question") and "View as Roles"

Could anyone help?

[v-chuncz-msft · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

You may check the links below.

• Query overview in Power BI Desktop
• https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Feature-Gap-Power-BI-Desktop-vs-Excel-Power-Add-ins/m-p/7606#M1095
• https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/How-do-you-differentiate-between-Power-BI-and-Excel/m-p/326179#M145508

[Anonymous]

Thaks - very helpful

[Anonymous]

I've just thought of one more difference - there's only  a manual refresh in Desktop BI, it doesn't offer the various autorefresh options in Power Query

---