Sharepoint list relations

[sminonese]

I have several lists on a Sharepoint site that I am importing to Power BI. The lists are related by lookup fields and I have tried to keep a strict structure to help relating the data unambiguously.

But when I import a specific Sharepoint list to Power BI, it doesn't automically pull in related tables. It is true I can "expand" columns to pull in related tables, but then all of the data is collected in a single query or "supertable". Obviously Power BI understands the relationship between tables, why doesn't it create separate table structures and set up the relationships between them? I can easily select which tables I want to have imported, but now I have to manually set up the relationships.

Contrast this to the behaviour of Access. If I import and link a Sharepoint list to an empty database, Access automatically fetches all dependent tables and models the relationship correctly.

[v-yuezhe-msft]

Hi sminonese,

Power BI desktop doesn’t automatically pull in related tables for you to choose or load them. If you concern about this feature, please summit your idea on the Power BI Idea forum: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas .

However, after you load tables, Power BI Desktop will auto-detect relationships when it can , for example, when it finds matching column names and data types between tables, it will display table diagram with relationships in Relationship view.

If Power BI Desktop cannot determine with a high-level of confidence there is a match, it will not automatically create the relationship. You can still use the Manage Relationships dialog to create or edit relationships.

For more details about managing relationships in Power BI desktop, please review the following articles.
Create and manage relationships in Power BI Desktop
Creating Relationships Manually in Power BI

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang