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Anonymous
Not applicable

Need Help importing attribute tables from shapefiles/geodatabse features into Power BI

I am just startingto use Power BI so this may be a very stupid question, but I have not been able to find anything by Googling it.  Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me. 

 

I have approximately 12 features in a file geodatabase with the same fields (1 for each county I am looking at).  I need to bring the attributes into Power BI but am having issues.  Below is what I have tried and how it fails. 

 

1. I opened the attribute table in ArcMap and exported the data to a text file.  I then imported the text file into Power BI

       This worked for attribute tables that didn't have any commas in any of the fields but              failed where there were address fields or something similar

 

2. I opened the attribute table and exported the tables to .dbf files.  As far as I can tell, Power BI does not import dbf files so I created an Access databse and linked to these tables.  I was then able to import the Access tables into Power BI

     The problem, though, is I cannot append these tables together in Power Query.  It                   appends them in the query, but when I hit apply and close, I get this message. 

 
ParcelDataAllCorrectedCountiesAppended
Failed to save modifications to the server. Error returned: 'OLE DB or ODBC error: [DataFormat.Error] Too many fields defined.. '.
 
When I Google the error message, I seem to only get info realated to Access. 
Something about Access not deleting fields when new ones are added so it goes over 255.  I could be wrong, but I am thinking the error has something to do with this even though I didn't think the files were being effected in Power BI.
 
I do not have this issue when I append queries brought in from text files. 
 
I can append two tables that were brought into Power BI from teh Access database fine , but if I try to append more than that, I get the error message.  Does anyone know what is happening or more importantly, how I can fix this problem? 
 
Alternatively. Is there a way to import features from geodatabases into Power BI?  My files are very large so exporting the data to shapefiles isn't always an option. 
Thank you! 
2 REPLIES 2
v-diye-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous 

 

Sorry I can't replicate your issue, I would suggest you creating a support ticket on Power BI Support page for better assistance.

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/

Support Ticket.gif

Community Support Team _ Dina Ye
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more
quickly.
Anonymous
Not applicable

Thank you for your suggestion. Unfortunately, I am unable to create a support ticket.

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