How do I get my Excel users to use Power BI???

Lots of people use Excel and love it! But what about Power BI? Why not use both together? Patrick looks at how Excel users can take advantage of Power BI and may just start using that!

Start in Excel to connect to Power BI datasets


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[michelbrokx]

Don't see what the advantage is. What you show in pbi is equal to what is possible in excel. Or am I missing the oint why to switch?

[AvikMukherjee]

Excel has certain features and above all "easy to use" for business users. Very difficult at this point to replace excel. Just today was talking to business user and he questioned how we can freeze panel or certain columns in power BI tables where in a table display he has over 25 columns and 1000 rows (up down scroll). Now he wants to show first 5 columns as fixed and remaining should have left/right scrolling. I couldn't yet find any visual that supports such.

[taylormcalear]

My users really love when I create our custom data source and build my Power BI off it as usual, but then I create a button in the PBI that links to an Excel version of the PBI using cube connections and pivot tables. Then within the Excel I have a link to the PBI. They can use the version they want, and the one that best suits their use case.

[utubeAgape]

I love excel and am now falling in love with PBI! What I see happening still, is the majority of leaders presenting data visuals on a PPT slide. Never do they present from a Power BI and they have an admin build their slide decks. The admins ask us for a slide version of PBI visuals or excel visual. At the functional team level, users may consume power bi reports but usage often slowly dies after the initial rush to put it out there. Often they are intimidated by the data and don’t take the time to go through the various ways to filter, etc. I know it seems basic, but lots of education is still required today on how to use data to manage the business.

[SoulTrain]

Question for anyone: once uploaded to Power BI, will that Excel sheet automatically update? I have a spreadsheet that clients "just don't want to click refresh" for. If I set the spreadsheet to automatically refresh every few minutes on Desktop, then upload to Power BI like in the video, will that spreadsheet stay updated without clicking "refresh all" in the data tab for my client?

[FedericoLov]

cube formulas are the most game changing features ever. And they existed for years yet nobody seems to know them.

[danielprice]

This is Fantastic Idea of winning over Excel Users!

[DarrenSaw]

In the UK getting your organisation to pay for licensing is the biggest barrier.

[mattbarone]

This is great. I have 2 challenges with this for my users - there are occasions where the business does niot want the dataset to be refreshed every day - for example, they want to create a pivot table / report with static detail to be emailed to other users. Second would be the ability to add customer measures not part of the model - normally they would use the "Calculated Field" function but this is greyed out in connected pivot tables. Can this be done?

[bamakaze]

There are too many formula sets for statistics, math, and cleaning data. Power query and power pivot are not the reasons Excel is so popular; they are great tools but not the main selling point.

[richardnguyenduong]

Very interesting topic. I am thinking Excel = Power app + Power BI as quick data entry and manipulating data is another major point to Excel users.

[DIGITAL_COOKING]

Great one Patrick!👍
But it's make me stick more to excel not to switch over to power bi 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[peco]

We have this working but also have external tenant users wanting to connect to the data source. What is the best way to get a data source gallery view for external users? Random connection strings are obviously possible but a sub optimal self service experience.

[tbablue]

You can't beat the immediacy of Excel. A strong excel user can perform unbelievable transformations in literally mere minutes.

[kenleong]

I believe rip the bandaid off is less painful than slowly.

[camarojay]

Can you do a video on how to connect to ServiceNow from Power BI?

[jjethwa]

This is such a good idea! You guys have some amazing content

[komanguy]

Wow! Great feature! Power bi dataset as the unique source of truth and connect excel to that dataset! Excellent!

[atisheyamaharana]

Its amazing. Thanks for sharing this.😊

[concert_music]

Wow, looks amazing! Will there be support for perspectives to reduce the available tables/columns/measures that an Excel user will have available?