How to Access Excel or CSV Files Saved on Power BI Report Server Directly?

1a.) Navigate to your Power BI report Server find your Excel flat file and click the 3 ellipse dots to access the “Manage” menu.

1b.) Look for the bread crumb path near the top of your menu bar and right click your excel file name and then “Copy shortcut”. This is the URL you need which contains the files GUID.

E.g. of a totally fictitious server URL, the files GUID is highlighted in blue: https://yourserver.0007.co.uk/PBIReports/api/v2.0/Resources(123abc456-your-files-GUID-here-789efg00)/Content/$value

2)    Open Power BI and select [Get Data], from main screen or “Home” menu on the Power BI desktop.

3)    Choose [Web] as a query data source.

4)    Enter the files URL, using the relevant API string: http://<your report server>/reports/api/v2.0/Resources( <your excel file's guid> )/Content/$value

5a. or b.) Once the query loads your source file, you should see a plain file icon, labelled with the same name as your report server. Notice that it loads the file as a binary file.

Right-click the icon (or click the [Open As] folder icon located on the left menu, just underneath the main Power BI commend bar). Both methods do the same thing, i.e. open a new menu bar with suggested “open as” file types. Select “Excel”, or whatever your file type is.

6 or 7)  The next screen will load a table containing a list of any datasets held within your excel file.

In my example, I had data saved as an Excel table (labelled 6. on my screenshots). Power BI will also load any worksheets containing data, e.g 7 on my screen shots below. Click the dark yellow [Table] link

Expand Tableto open up your underlying excel data.

That’s it, wham, your excel file held on the Power BI Report Server should load.

Here is the M Script if you find it easier and can adjust the code to fit your file paths:

let
Source = Excel.Workbook(Web.Contents("https://yourserver.0007.co.uk/PBIReports/api/v2.0/Resources(123abc456-your-files-GUID-here-789efg00)/Content/$value"), null, true),

My_Sample_Data_Sheet = Source{[Item="My_Sample_Data",Kind="Sheet"]}[Data]

in
Source