Best practice: How to build data model with Excel

[ajourneyinto]

Hi

What's the Best Practice to build a data model?

Would like to build data model in Excel in order to use it on different Reports in PowerBI

Would like to use PowerBI online and PowerBI Desktop in parallel

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@ajourneyinto,

Why not directly build data model in Power BI Desktop, then create reports there and publish PBIX files to Power BI Service?

In addition, if you persist to build data model in Excel, what option would you like to use , Power query or PowerPivot?  I would recommend you post questions in the following relevant forums.

Power query
Powerpivot

Regards,
Lydia

[ajourneyinto]

the idea would also be to create just one data model (as it might be complex) also for further use in other Excel Dashboards...

[ajourneyinto]

Hi Lydia

Building a data model in PowerBI Desktop sounds good, but

if I want to create different projects on this model, how can I resuse it in other PBIX?

Like a single source data model?

Wouldn't it be better to create it in Excel and then use it in both, PowerBI Desktop and PowerBIService?

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@ajourneyinto,

Firstly, you are able to connect to different sources in a single PBIX file.

Secondly, you can connect to Excel file in Power BI Desktop following the guide in the article when you put Excel in OneDrive for business.

Thirdly, after you publish PBIX file to Power BI Service, you are able to connect to the dataset from Excel using "Analyze in Excel" feature.

Regards,
Lydia

[ajourneyinto]

additional questions:

how can I use an Excel file, located on Sharepoint or OneDrive in PowerBI Desktop?

It will only point me to the local drives...

the workarround I've found so far was to create the Reports in PowerBI Online and to export them as PBIX,

but also this doesn't work in all cases... why?