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Connect Excel to Power BI datasets

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  • 2 minutes to read

Microsoft Excel is the most common data analysis tool for information workers and organizations across the globe. Part of Excel’s appeal is that you can start your data journey in a few clicks, with quick calculations, data visualizations, and ad-hoc analysis.

In many organizations, data sits in multiple silos, including in Excel workbooks, across the enterprise. These silos make it hard for users to find the data they need, resulting in potential business losses.

You can discover and connect to centralized, secure data in Power BI from wherever you work, including in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Teams. Excel and Power BI combine the versatility of Excel with the governance and security standards of Power BI. This pairing ensures that workers use the right data, securely. They can make better decisions to achieve business goals, and foster an enhanced data culture.

Screenshot of PivotTable and Power BI datasets in Excel.

Access Power BI datasets in Excel

When you access Power BI datasets in Excel, the datasets inherit properties such as endorsement labels and sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview Information Protection, so the data stays secure. Datasets tagged with the labels Certified or Promoted are likely to be of better quality and more authoritative than datasets without a label.

You can connect to Power BI datasets in Excel by starting in the Power BI service or in Excel for the web or the Excel desktop app.

Prerequisites

Here are things to keep in mind for connecting to Power BI datasets in Excel:

  • Analyzing Power BI data in Excel is supported for Microsoft Excel 2010 SP1 and later.

  • Your dataset in Power BI must have pre-defined measures. Excel PivotTables don't support drag-and-drop aggregation of numeric fields. Read about creating measures.

  • Analyzing Power BI data in Excel requires that the dataset be in a Power BI Premium workspace or that you have a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license. To learn more about the differences in functionality between license types, take a look at the Power BI features comparison section of Power BI pricing.

  • You need permissions for the underlying dataset if you want to connect to Power BI datasets in Excel. You could have this permission in either of two ways:

    You could have the Member role in the workspace containing the dataset.

    You could have Build permission for the dataset in a workspace, or in an app that contains the dataset. Read more about Build permission for Power BI datasets.

  • You can only analyze Power BI data in the Excel desktop app on computers running Microsoft Windows. For computers running other operating systems, you can analyze Power BI data in Excel for the web.

Next steps