Simple Power BI Stuff

Excel Workbook: The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine. The 64-bit version of the Access Database Engine 2010 Access Database Engine OLEDB provider is required to connect to read this type of file. To download the client software, visit the following site: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=285987 It looks like you tried to open a XLS file with Power BI. Yeah, no. XLS is forbidden territory, you can't just walk in there. You have to be sneaky. Here's the trick: Source.xls --> Excel-file located in OneDrive - -> Power BI Did you see it? It's right there, in between. Let's zoom in: XLSX-file located in OneDrive (or any other cloud storage for that matter) that imports the XLS file using Power Query It's really that simple. Locate the XLS file you wish to use. Import it into a cloud stored XLSX format Excel-file. Use desktop Excel to create the connection with Power Query. Read the XLS as Web.Contents and the...

Use dataflows to organize your work and to separate ETL from visualizations. Trust me, for I'm a stranger you found in a blog, this will change your report designing habits for good. Your lineage should go from data source(s) to PBI report/dashboard/app like this:      DS --> Dataflow -> Report Datasources can be wherever they might be as long as you can connect to them from the PBI Desktop and PBI Service. Dataflow will be designed in the Power Query Editor of  PBI Desktop and in the Model and Data views of PBI Desktop and published in PBI Service. Report will be designed in the Power Query Editor of PBI Desktop and in the Model, Data and Report views of PBI Desktop and published in PBI Service. The above stunning graph in more verbose format: Connect to your data source(s). Get the raw'ish data. Do the thing in the Power Query. Do the cleaning, transformations etc. Make the data so good that there's nothing for the usual end user to tinker. Disable all the...