Can PowerBI handle a large flat file?

Question

Hi,&nbsp;Let's just say I don't know anything about RDMS.&nbsp;What If I use a flat file in uploading my data to PowerBI&nbsp;State,City,SiteName,Manager,Supervisor,Employee,,Date,Data 1, Data 2, .... Data 50&nbsp;or maybe picture 100 columns by 10,000 rows.&nbsp;&nbsp;Can Power BI handle something like that

tomevers2 · Answer

probably, it handles millions of rows on some of my stuff. &nbsp;I did run into memory issues on one report, but expanding my paging file fixed that pretty quick

ovetteabejuela · Answer

why I asked?&nbsp;I am currently spear-heading a PowerBI project and I have a team of a little over 50, PowerBI or it's concepts are relatively new to some.&nbsp;I would like to buy some time by letting them do a flat-file until such time I can oversee everyone (I will be training everyone in a group, but I know for myselft that it's hard to grasp the entire concept) Even I am still fumbling from here and there.&nbsp;&nbsp;So again... the flat file will implement the project(s) and improvements will follow.

tomevers2 · Answer

Seems like a good way to get started. &nbsp;&nbsp;I switched a large project to use a text file, because one of the users couldn't refresh the report due to credential issues on the database. &nbsp;I'm a consultant, so I need to leave them with something they can use so I set up SSIS to drop the file in their directory each week. &nbsp;It's a ranking of products sold that week by the chain and each store. &nbsp;The products sold run about 8 or 9 thousand a week and 127 stores. &nbsp;And it works fine with 8gig of ram on the machine and the pagefile is now 16gb.&nbsp;&nbsp;

ovetteabejuela · Answer

Min's totally different, it's diverse. each of my team members handles unique businesses that one challenge, these businesses can range from small to large population. There maybe common areas maybe around 40% but the rest are different (maybe some common to some) so just like you I will train them with the concept, let it sink in and they initiate their business PowerBi reporting... I will try to be there to each one of them for support even though I'm new to PowerBi myself although the concept is not new to me.&nbsp;Thank you for sharing, I think I'm a little more confident the approach is not that bad at all.

racheldyer · Answer

Hey, I just wanted to find out -- since this is a while ago now -- how did it go? I consult with a few companies where the Business Analysts are used to getting flat files of data and then manipulating them in Excel. Fact and dimension tables are new concepts to them. They will not be building them in Power Query -- that would be too hard for them. But they want to use Power BI. How did that work out for you? Thanks

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Can PowerBI handle a large flat file?

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