Is there a way to import a model directly into Desktop from an Excel PowerPivot model?

[MiguelMartinez]

I've been trying to "import" my PowerPivot model from an Excel file directly into Dektop but it looks like the only way of doing this is connecting from service and creating the reports and dashboards there. Is that the case? Thanks!

[foodd · Accepted solution]

Hello @maivarss , this is a legacy post from 2015, and that @andre clarified and provided guidance on feature update, and that you have not added additional feedback the assumption is that this issue has been resolved.  

Issues

If you have found a true bug or issue, you can make a post to the forum to let others know (and that would be very nice of you to do so). But if you want to get it fixed, you should post it in the Issues/Ideas (it varies) area of the community. Specifically, you should post it here:

Power BI - https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Issues/idb-p/Issues
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If you have a new idea for functionality or how something should work, you can certainly start a thread on the community to solicit feedback on your idea, but you should also post the idea in the ideas section of the website and solicit others to vote on your idea. The development teams use the Ideas area of the communities to build their development pipeline and a significant amount of weight is placed on Ideas that have lots of votes versus those that do not. The ideas areas of the communities are here:

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[sarangan]

I'm trying to follow the support instructions available here:

https://support.powerbi.com/knowledgebase/articles/703422-import-excel-workbooks-into-power-bi-deskt...

But Power BI Desktop doesn't seem to have this. Is there a timeline for when this feature will be coming through?

[AlexGorev]

It is comming VERY soon! 🙂

Stay tuned and check http://blogs.msdn.com/powerbi blog for announcements!

Thanks,

Alex.

[maivarss]

It's now been 3 months since we would "very soon" be able to import PowerPivot model to PowerBI desktop. Any new on when this will be available? As relationship management seem to work differently in PowerPivot vs. PowerBI desktop (e.g. get some inactive relatonships in Desktop vs. active for the same relationship in PowerPivot), it's currently not possible by uploading the data and editing the relationships directly in PowerBI desktop... Will this also be fixed in a future update? Thanks for an otherwise great tool!!

[andre]

@maivarss you can import Power PIvot model into Power BI Desktop today and should have been able to for a couple of months now.  Please make sure that you have the latest build.  You can also create relationships by draging and dropping just like in Power Pivot.

[maivarss]

@andre thanks for the quick reply - I have Desktop version 2.28.4190.122 which is the latest I find on https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop. When uploading an Excel file with all relationships set up in PowerPivot, I am able to import the data into Desktop but the relationships and calculated measures etc disappears. Then when trying to re-create the relationships in Desktop, some relationships becomes inactive when created whereas they are active in my PoweverPivot model. Any advise on how to resolve this / identify what I'm doing wrong is greatly appreciated 🙂

[andre]

the way to fix the inactive relationships is to go into the Edit mode ->Advanced Options and make sure that they are set up as Single and not Both for Cross Filter Direction for all relationships in the model... (technically you don't have to do all, but if you are not sure which ones to change, then just change them all)

[AlexGorev]

Excel Import feature is no available in the August update of the PBI Desktop!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/08/20/announcing-the-power-bi-desktop-august-update.asp...

Alex.

[CLEARIFY]

Note that there is an issue if you have renamed your columns inside of the PowerPivot data model. 

When PowerBI desktop imports the model, The Advanced Editor is not showing the reference to the actual table name, thus showing an expression error that the column is not found.

let
    Source = Odbc.DataSource("Provider=MSDASQL.1;Persist Security Info=False;Mode=Read;DSN=QQubeUser"),
    #"Renamed Columns" = Table.RenameColumns(Source, {{"Class Active", "Class Active"},{"Class Name", "Class Name"}, {"Class Full Name", "Class Full Name"}, {"LinkForClassID", "LinkForClassID"}})
in
    #"Renamed Columns"

[AlexGorev]

We are actively working on Excel files import into PBI Desktop! Stay tuned!!!

Alex.

[andre]

the version of the desktop that is currently available for download does not support import from PowerPivot.