Excel files uploaded in Fabric and Data Refresh

[dd88]

Can someone please confirm.

In SharePoint folders are Excel files which areformatted, not as table.The data is updated often.

This video mentions to Prepare your data for Power Bi. The Excel files to be
1. flat formats &
2. Formatted as a table

Prepare your data for Power BI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2wy4XgQIu0

I thought I could upload or connect to the Excel spreadsheets as they are.

However it seems the steps are
1. work out the orginial source Excel spreadsheet
2. Prepare the spreadsheet
3. The prepared spreadsheet is the file uploaded into the Workspace/ Fabric
4. The Excel spreadsheet will have changes therefore set a Data Refresh

Can someone please confirm.

TIA

[Anonymous]

Hi @dd88 ,

You could try connecting directly to the semantic model and then exporting it as a CSV, which might reduce the amount of redoing to some extent.

Hope it helps!

Best regards,
Community Support Team_ Scott Chang

If this post helps then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin]

Not sure what you are asking.  Power BI can access Excel Sheets or Tables  (defined and named structures inside sheets). Both will work, but tables also carry meta data, making it easier for Power Query to handle the incoming data. With Sheets connections you have to do that work yourself.

[dd88]

@lbendlin 

Update .. hope this is clearer.

Background 

The orginal powerbi report was built before Fabric was available. The powerbi report data source was an Excel spreadsheet in SharePoint (Teams) folder. I connected directly to the spreadsheet, and transformed the data. the powerbi report was located in the same SharePoint folder. The users synced SharePoint to File Explorer. The users would double click to open the PowerBI report, and perform a Manual data refresh. PowerBI desktop app was installed locally.

Now, the powerbi report is to be moved into Microsoft Fabric a Workspace.  My question is, for the powerbi report what is the best way to link to the excel data souce, and have the data refresh update automatically? for example,

1. do I migrate the powerbi report as is with the orginial connection to the excel spreadsheet. then  configure scheduled data refresh. which is currently not working 

2. Do I start from scratch ie the power bi report connect to  prepared the excel data as mentioned in the video.

Prepare your data for Power BI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2wy4XgQIu0

This means I would have 'duplicates' of the data. The 1. orginial excel spreadsheet, and 2. prepared data spreadsheet from the orginal excel spreadsheet. The report is connected to the prepared data spreadsheet. With data updates sync/ or scheuled data refreshes will need to be setup and configured.

What is the best approach?

[lbendlin]

The powerbi report data source was an Excel spreadsheet in SharePoint (Teams) folder. I connected directly to the spreadsheet

I wouldn't do that.  I would use the SharePoint Folder connector.