The PERFECT Power BI dataflows use case

We get a lot of questions about Power BI dataflows and when to use them. Patrick explores a use case that screams for using dataflows! Are you taking this approach?


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[danneubauer]

My main use case for data flows is to bring data which requires an enterprise gateway into the power bi service.
If many reports need TableX, and have to go through a gateway to get it from the source, I will instead load TableX into a data flows and point all the reports to the dataflow instead.
Now I hit the gateway, and source system once instead of many times.

We just need dataflow query folding to make this better.

[SranioDrljaca]

This is execly how do we us it in our organization for last 2 years. It makes empowerment much easier: Employee can write his/her own Power Query, if it is useful for everyone, he/she send it to us (PMO) and we copy/past it it in Dataflow so that everyone can use it (project managers, controller, delivery officer...). Additionall to creating single source of truth, it makes their Power BI files faster, as transformations are already done (PMO even created Staging process and almost nothing is transformed in Power BI File).

[louism.]

Love how you made it so simple to understand!

[RajRao]

The perfect use case I have found is if your data source is slow and multiple datasets will use the same data or a major portion of the data. In this case the data flow centralizes the data and as it's already in Azure, datasets and even pbi desktop can load it a lot faster. We do this for our on prem data sources, which can be a lot slower to load via a gateway.

[bkdbudk]

Here is a "real world" use-case for a dataflow that "normal" people working at a business can relate to. A company has a huge list of parts that it uses in its manufacturing process. If someone needs a list of the parts, they refer to an Excel spreadsheet that has them all BUT... The Excel sheet is a DISASTER containing obsolete parts, test parts and all kinds of other junk. The work-around is to have someone clean-up the Excel list in Power BI and create a dataflow out of it. Then everyone at your entire company has access to the best parts list ever and can use it in any of their reports.

[scottbradley]

Thanks! Great video. I love dataflows and use them as much as I can. One big drawback I keep running into is assigning permission. I wish I could give someone build permission to the dataflow without having to give them access to the workspace.

[davidcadman]

Thanks. Since the few days ago lineage view in the service no longer shows arrows from my dataflows to my dataset - I find this troubling in an OCD kind of way. Is this a known issue?

[Noxictyz]

Is this a good use case? I have a production mirror and an archive server. I use the same native query against both for a fact table. I put incremental refresh on the table from archive. In a dataset I append these tables to get one neat table. It seems good...refresh went from 3min to 20s in cloud on first try...10m rows....but is it the best way?

[allmazd]

Well, the perfect case if you aren't admin of your sql database otherwise you can do views or even stored procedures which will do the exact same thing. Anyway this is another good method to utilize your data. As always thank you for your work!

[mariapradeepm]

Q: Thanks for the video but wondering why we do the same logic we put in SQL and create a shared dataset to centralize and ask other developers to reuse it? Could you please share your thoughts, it would be really helpful!

[bawxc]

Can we create a dataflow from an OLAP cube and then another dataflow from another data source and then connect them both?

[ThePPhilo]

Great video,
Is there a way to automatically apply visual folder structures and hierarchies to a dataflow once it is imported into a data model (tabular editor maybe?)
We have many Dataflows that we want to reuse across many reports and many developers. It's a PITA to have to recreate the folder and hierarchy each time though (especially if you want to be consistent)

[JhanviReddy]

How do we use data flows connecting to Azure SQL server without a Gateway, both are cloud but still needs Gareway to refresh the data any pointers?

[leecolbert]

Hey Patrick, are there any plans to allow dataflows to be edited by users in an AD or AAD group? It appears only one user can edit this despite the ability to share the logic in the dataflow.

[DzinoRC]

Hello, Do these steps with adding new columns requiring premium or embedded capacity or will it work also with PRO license?

[ZawirRunner]

Dataflow can only be created on the service am i right? Or it can be created on the desktop as well? Thanks

[kevindiedrichlong]

I have had some recent success using the Value.NativeQuery() function within Power Query and it appears to be significantly faster than folded steps within individual queries. Patrick, is this true? Are there advantages to writing native queries vs. allowing Power BI to construct?

[vignesh.s]

How can we refresh data for single table in dataflow instead of entire dataflow?

[exhbhin]

Good afternoon. Does anybode know how to convert to text base 64 mime header

[rafacasima]

Glad to see that I'm not the only person who had to deal with "but I aways did this spreadsheet this way" and used the same solution, i.e. "ok, I will organize it myself" 😂