Hi all,
I have an Excel xlsx with sheets of table on Sharepoint online. I would like to generate visual report on PowerBi to present the tables from different sheets. I actually tried using PowerBI desktop and services to do the job and I found pros and cons of each. So would like to seek for advise to use which one further:
- When using Service, it is quite easy and friendly to locate and load xlsx file by simply inputing the Sharepoint root path as it searches all the way down the hierachy, but in Desktop, the path of the xlsx needs to be quite specific though.
- When using Desktop, the way to import the xlsx is complicated, Get Data, Sharepoint, choose the file then go in Query Editor to extract table one by one..., while using Services, once the file is located, all the sheets and tables in the file are loaded and imported
- I usually got some errors when importing the file on Desktop, eg, data type error... While importing via Service, I seldom see errros....
- Desktop allows to save as pbix while Service cannot.
- Dekstop allows copy and paste of visual report, while Service can't
- Of course features in Desktop is more advanced like it has Relationship, etc while Service dont have those.
Now my requirement is simply below:
- The file will be edited directly on Sharepoint so changes to the values will need to be auto refreshed hourly to Visual report.
- If any table structure change, say adding or modifying columns, I can simply refresh dataset and then wrap up in the report
- Advanced features like Relationship is not a must but nice to have in case in future
The above seems leading myself to use Service but seems it is a one-way decision that means I cannot change to use Desktop in a simple one in the future I need some features in Desktop, unless I need to re-do everything from Desktop. Or I dont know if I can use both together or alternative for same dataset, report etc??
Your advise is highly appreciated.
