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markdevries's avatar
markdevries
New Member
10 years ago
Solved

Combining data sets in Power BI workspace

It's become clear to me that I cannot combine multiple tables to create a single report within the Power BI Service, that I must use BI Desktop instead, and then upload to BI Service.  So, my questio...
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    10 years ago

    Hi markdevries,

    You can compare the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service by reviewing this article.

    Since you want to combine data from multiple data sources, it is better to use Power BI Desktop to create reports and publish them to Service. Power BI Desktop provides advanced data exploration, shaping, modeling, and report creation comparing with Power BI Service.

    Thanks,
    Lydia Zhang



markdevries's avatar
markdevries
New Member
10 years ago

Hi Lydia,

Thanks very much for your response!

 

I've used the Power BI Service on Office 365 to load/import simple Excel files, and that works great.  But, I have several different Excel files/tables which I wanted to combine into one BI Report or Visual, linking them by a common key field.  But BI Service cannot combine multiples tables, only BI Desktop can do that.

 

So, I thought I would just load all of the tables into one Access file and import that into BI Service.  (I previously created the Access file using a local copy of Access on a PC)  But, I discovered that BI Service doesn't import Access files either, only BI Desktop will do that.  I was very surprised at the extremely limited range of files which BI Service will import.

 

So, it appears that Office 365 users are very limited when using just BI Service, that they really need to install BI Desktop locally to do much with BI.  I've encountered similar limitations with other Office 365 applications, which have much more limited functions than the locally installed app.  For myself, I always prefer to have the Office apps installed locally.  But, I was looking for a solution like Office 365 for others which can be used from any device, anywhere, through a browser.

 

In contrast, I also use Tableau for BI as it is my company standard self-service BI tool.  Whether I'm using Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, I get pretty much the same capabilities as with Tableau Desktop, so I really don't need to install Tableau Desktop locally.  So, I just need to continue looking for the best solution.

 

Thanks!

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
10 years ago

Hi markdevries,

You can compare the difference between Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service by reviewing this article.

Since you want to combine data from multiple data sources, it is better to use Power BI Desktop to create reports and publish them to Service. Power BI Desktop provides advanced data exploration, shaping, modeling, and report creation comparing with Power BI Service.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang



  • markdevries's avatar
    markdevries
    New Member
    10 years ago

    Thank you very much, Lydia, for your advice and the link to that article!  I probably should have read that first before investing so much time and effort into Office 365.  I will continue to use Office 365, but more as a light-weight collaboration solution, rather than replacing our local desktop apps.  I was hopeful that the cloud solutions today were more mature than they are.  At least I have the kind of Office 365 subscription which provides local app software too.

    Thanks!