Power BI Get Data: Import vs. DirectQuery vs. Live (2021)

Import vs. DirectQuery vs. Live connection. Which do you choose and why in Power BI? Adam looks at the three options when creating reports in Power BI Desktop including composite models.

Power BI Data Sources:

Star Schema:

DirectQuery model guidance:

Composite Model guidance:

DirectQuery for Power BI Datasets video:


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[late_arvie]

It's good that you are still doing these beginner videos!

[DPFierce]

Although you have similar video, it’s good to revisit some topics as updates are made. This is very timely for me as I am having to reconfigure a report due to the 1GB threshold w/o Premium capacity. Thanks for the updated info!! BTW...one of tables I’m working with has 33Million rows and Power BI loads it without an issue!

[challanagendra]

Great video I have seen this morning. Really worthy to watch this

[knuckleheadmcspazatron]

Very useful! Thanks for taking the time to cover this. And our database is perfect ;-)

[Josh-iwmd]

Just want to say this is an amazing channel and has really helped me with my new role at work. Thank you so much.

[thomasnicholas]

Thank you for explaining the difference between Import and Direct Query. Now I know what I need to do.

[thomasivarsson]

Four types then. Import, direct query, live connection and hybrid? Good video!

[frikharamy]

My man Adam is back ! keep it up :D :D

[dsilva]

Thank you so much for this video! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

[tomaskavicky]

not a beginner anymore, but really worth to see this ;)

[omarcastillo]

Hi guys, first of all you are great! you explain everythong very clear. I have a question: do Power BI data flows are restricted to import, and are we able to do an incremental refresh with data flows? thx!

[johnheck]

Another great video. I have a question, you mentioned about a date issue with Direct Query in SQL. Can you explain it further? If you want to use Dates, Months, Quarters, Week Ending, etc. would you suggest using Import over Direct Query? Do you have any videos that show working with Dates?

[felipebarrera]

Can you explain also the difference regarding data flows? Please.

[Marcel-f]

To who don't know, the PBIX file is a ZIP file with extension renamed to PBIX.

[claudiaouellet]

I don't know why I bother trying to find information on PowerBI from other channels. I always end up back on yours for the real stuff. High-quality content as usual. Thank you!

[NOZOEMI]

Hi Adam! If I’m pulling noSQL source into power BI, do you mean I’d I create a star schema within power BI, breaking one giant table into several tables to for star schema, the performance will be better than pulling that one table directly? If I have several messy tables from noSQL database, would you rather create a unit giant table with only needed columns, or just every tables and join them in Power BI data model? Or have to consolidate them into one and then break into a star schema? Thank you so much!

[test-jrbx]

With DirectQuery we have a nice separation between the data and data model, which is handy to be able to upload/publish changes to the model only. Is the same possible with imported data (splitting data & the data model into 2 separate files)?

[harshindublin]

Can you please show a demo about schedule refresh for the follow types

[vanishedxu]

Thanks for the video! So what would be the best connection mode for near real-time reports? I got different messages from the docs. Sometimes it says DirectQuery can do a few seconds, and sometimes it says every 15 minutes.

[gopalb]

Hi guys you make understand easy.. With every topic I watch to refer and can you guys show me how to connect to service now tool to get data.. From long time i been waiting for it.