Forum Discussion
Data heavy Excel reports in Power BI
I am currently working on migrating a few Excel reports to Power BI. Because of business requirements, some of our reports have many rows and columns (107 columns for one report). The Power BI version of the Excel report doesn’t look very good and is not as nice to use as the Excel version.
Can you please provide some guidance on how to tackle this issue in Power BI to achieve similar level of functionality as Excel in in Power BI? Or is Power BI not suitable for these types of reports?
Hi Bikhod2 ,
You are correct on your conclusion, please see my comments on the points you refered:
- Excel the data is presented as a table with Excle table style applied (coloured rows) to make it easy to see the data - This is possible you can have alternate backgrounds
- Each column can easily be filtered using the default Excel table behaviour - This can be done using the filter pane and not directly on the column. There are some visuals on the app source that also allows this direct filter
- Each column can be easily filtered using the filter by text etc features of Excel# - Same as previous
- Our business users are very comoftable with Excel - No comments on this 😄
- Sometimes users can, and do, add additional columns using Excel formulae - This is not possible in Power BI, altough there are some visualizations that currently allows this but they are not free.
This is a very different program from Excel they work very well together, if you wan to keep the excel possibilities please check the links below:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-analyze-in-excel
4 Replies
- MFelix
Super User
Hi Bikhod2 ,
When you refer that the Power BI version for excel report doesn't look very good , what do you mean?
In my opinion trying to create a table in Power BI that as 107 columns is not usable, Power BI is more visual than excel, so the experience is different.
If you have a PPU or a Premium license you can use the Analyze in Excel option.
Hi Felix,
Regarding the looks:
- Excel the data is presented as a table with Excle table style applied (coloured rows) to make it easy to see the data
- Each column can easily be filtered using the default Excel table behaviour
- Each column can be easily filtered using the filter by text etc features of Excel#
- Our business users are very comoftable with Excel
- Sometimes users can, and do, add additional columns using Excel formulae
I do think that Power BI is better suited for visulation and Excel is better suited for displaying row data. But, as I am new to Power BI, I thought I'd check with the community and get some advice.
- MFelix
Hi Bikhod2 ,
You are correct on your conclusion, please see my comments on the points you refered:
- Excel the data is presented as a table with Excle table style applied (coloured rows) to make it easy to see the data - This is possible you can have alternate backgrounds
- Each column can easily be filtered using the default Excel table behaviour - This can be done using the filter pane and not directly on the column. There are some visuals on the app source that also allows this direct filter
- Each column can be easily filtered using the filter by text etc features of Excel# - Same as previous
- Our business users are very comoftable with Excel - No comments on this 😄
- Sometimes users can, and do, add additional columns using Excel formulae - This is not possible in Power BI, altough there are some visualizations that currently allows this but they are not free.
This is a very different program from Excel they work very well together, if you wan to keep the excel possibilities please check the links below:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-analyze-in-excel
