Use Power BI Desktop as a Local Server on a PC

[matt16]

It is possible to open Power BI Desktop, detect the port number, open Excel, connect to the running local instance of Power BI Desktop as a local SSAS instance and then build a pivot table over the local server. You can do this using DAX Studio. This is very useful and as more people build Power BI Desktop files as the main data model, this will become more important. There is an "Analyze in Excel" feature in the Power BI Service and I would like to see the same for Power BI Desktop. As a suggested approach to a solution, you could enhance the Power BI Ribbon in Excel. There is already a "Connect to Data" button that connects to the service. You could enhance this to include a button that connects to a local instance of Power BI Desktop running on the PC.

[nvddussen2]

I would love such a feature! I'm working in the bundu and often don't have internet access. At the moment I'm building the data models twice - once in PowerBI once in Excel 2016

[wvgiant]

Yes, please!!

[abbasrana731]

yes please

[khoahnd]

Yes, wonderful feature, please apply.

[fbcideas_migusr]

I have many scenarios where I'd use this.

[retamapark1]

I would like to see this happen!

[martin_esani2]

Would love this feature

[bi_power2]

Please add this to Excel

[manohar_fern]

This will really aid in reverse engineering and cleaning up reports that can be optimised

[dan_thompson]

I would be tempted to change the title to make it clearer for other voters - this is about connecting Excel to a Power BI Desktop file. - there are another 20 votes here: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/13532169-connect-excel-to-power-bi-desktop-non-cloud-versi