Referencing Attached Microsoft Access Files (.PDFs, .JPGs) in PowerBI

[kmcging]

Good morning PowerBI Community!

I'm looking to use PowerBI to visualize data for an asset management project I'm working on. I have a Microsoft Access file with a mixture of integer condition data and attached files (.pdf plans and .jpg photographs) that I would like to make more accessible to a client using a PowerBI dashboard. I have so far been successful in importing the integer data tables, but the tables containing attached files (attached using the method shown under the heading "Add an attachment to table" here ) do not show the attachment fields when referenced in PowerBI. In Microsoft Access, for example, "Table X" is a 6-column unassigned object with 3 attachment field columns and 3 text field columns that act as captions, but when referenced into PowerBI, "Table X" is a 3 column table where only the caption columns are present.

Is it possible to pass these attached files from Microsoft Access to be displayed in PowerBI using another attachment or fetching method, or is there another data source that would work better?

Thank you very much!

[v-robertq-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi, @kmcging 

If you use a power bi desktop to connect to the Access database, the power bi desktop can not Identify the columns containing the attachments(jpg, pdf).

If you want to insert .jpg files to the desktop, you can click this button:

And if you want to connect to .pdf files in desktop, you can use the pdf connector, like this:

Follow this link, you can learn more about connecting to pdf files.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-connect-pdf

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.