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GuyJohnson
Helper I
Helper I

Excel comments

I have many Excel spreadsheets that in which the users have placed comments into the cells. How can I put these spreadsheets into Power BI and be able to utilize the comments that are there

11 REPLIES 11
Greg_Deckler
Super User
Super User

Sounds like you would want to put the Excel files in OneDrive and then connect (not import) them to Power BI Service.


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DAX is easy, CALCULATE makes DAX hard...

No. The spreadsheet has comments inside the individual cells. These comments do not surface when I inport the spreadsheet into Power BI. I need to be able to see the comment and work with them in Power BI.

 

The location of the file in immaterial

I respectfully disagree. If you do it the way that I suggest, you will be able to see your comments in Power BI. Again, upload your file to OneDrive and then in the Service, choose Get Data, point to your OneDrive file and choose Connect. One the next screen DO NOT CHOOSE TO IMPORT. Here is a simple test I did:

 

ExcelComment.png


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Instead of a Kudo, please vote for this idea
Become an expert!: Enterprise DNA
External Tools: MSHGQM
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The Definitive Guide to Power Query (M)

DAX is easy, CALCULATE makes DAX hard...

Okay that does work but how am I going to use those comments in a dashboard.

 

Also I want to go through the Desktop as there are more powerful option there.

This is the only route that I know of that supports Excel comments.


@ me in replies or I'll lose your thread!!!
Instead of a Kudo, please vote for this idea
Become an expert!: Enterprise DNA
External Tools: MSHGQM
YouTube Channel!: Microsoft Hates Greg
Latest book!:
The Definitive Guide to Power Query (M)

DAX is easy, CALCULATE makes DAX hard...

Thanx for the help. It gets me part of the way.

 

There needs to be a way that these comments can be "surfaced" in the desktop version of Power BI.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Can you 'surface' the comments into cells in the Excel workbook (where PBI Desktop can get at them) using a user-defined function - e.g. http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/09/03/get-cell-comments/

Thanx for link - I'll give that a try later today and see what happens.

Brian_M
Responsive Resident
Responsive Resident

I was hoping that if you put the file onto OneDrive you might be able to GET the comments using the Graph API. I've done some research and it seems the comments aren't avialable through the API yet.

 

You could vote for that here

https://officespdev.uservoice.com/forums/224641-feature-requests-and-feedback/suggestions/7172636-cr...

Will be voting for it. So many people use the comments to keep the Spreadsheet cleaner. But there are times that the comments are useful in Power BI

Figuring out the correct graph API call will be fun, but should be doable!

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