Forum Discussion
Combining data sets in Power BI workspace
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
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!
Three years ago does this question solved? i have the same issue with tables:
In my company, we have a billing system and it generates too much data per day/per outlet and per sales area so it takes too much time to upload the master data in Excel then refresh my power bi report and publish. But i've created a script for automatic update of separate tables in BI service and it works! This only thing i can't do it to combine those differents tables into one... is it possible to do it now using BI Service? if not i will suggest you add same functions on PBI Desktop to BI Service.