Forum Discussion
Best practice for importing data from multiple databases
Hey guys,
I am looking to understand the best practices for data modelling for my Power Bi report. In my situation, we have 3 databases from the same ERP system but are differentiated by geo region. For example; one database is Asia, one is Europe and one is America. They all contain the same tables.
Essentially we want to create a report that uses a couple of tables and be able to filter by country. What is the best practice for doing this? Our Azure environment does not let us query from multiple databases (so I cannot just write an SQL query that unions these tables and add this via SQL server statement).
I understand that you can add the tables in to Power Bi 3 times for each table, add a custom column in each of them to display the country name and append them all into one table - but I am unsure this is the best way to do this.
Could you please advise me on the best practices?
Thanks 🙂
Hello, your understanding is bang on. Thats the way to do it:
1. Import the tables.
2. For each Table add the custom column: Add Column >> Custom >> [NewColumnName]"Region Name" Custom column Formula ="Name you are needing"
3. Home >> Append Queries >> Append queries as new >> Three or more tables. Select all the tables you want to add to the append, click add and click ok.
3 Replies
- samdthompsonMemorable Member
Hello, your understanding is bang on. Thats the way to do it:
1. Import the tables.
2. For each Table add the custom column: Add Column >> Custom >> [NewColumnName]"Region Name" Custom column Formula ="Name you are needing"
3. Home >> Append Queries >> Append queries as new >> Three or more tables. Select all the tables you want to add to the append, click add and click ok.
- HarrisonBiFrequent Visitor
Thanks for your reply.
Does this mean that data is stored twice? Once, in the source table and once in the appended table?- camargos88Community Champion
Hi HarrisonBi ,
No, you are gonna just reference the table, not duplicating it. Also you can disable the load of the base table.
https://radacad.com/performance-tip-for-power-bi-enable-load-sucks-memory-up