Is it currently possible to build a custom data connector for EXCEL Power Query? If yes, where can i find more info?
I'm seeing all these custom connectors for Power BI, but NOT for EXCEL Power Query.
If it's not possible, I would really appreciate an official link where that's mentioned.
Thanks.
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I just recently realise, while using Excel, it lacks on features for being able to update SQL server data through their worksheet.
I have tried using Data-->From other sources--> SQL Server data; that works like a charm but as it has limited ability (View and only get the latest data but not update).
I don’t know if this is done purposely by Microsoft as a money making schemes.
But through my research today, I also came across PowerQuery, and It seems to do pretty much what Data add-in did escape it has few new extra features and sounds pretty advance, therefore, I was wondering if this add-in has the ability to update SQL server data using excel sheet, if so can you guys advise me to the right direction:
I came across lots of commercials products that did the job but frankly speaking, I cannot afford it.
The best solution for in this space that I've seen is the Master Data Services component included in SQL Server (Business Intelligence or Enterprise Edition). This includes an nice Excel Add-In for maintaining data, a Web UI and SQL Views and Staging Tables for data integration.
It doesn't have any direct integration with Power Query, but I would let PQ dump data into Excel Tables, then copy and paste the data into Excel tables using the MDS Add-In.
I've created an IUpdateable ODATA feed using WCF which I can connect to using Excel 2010 Power Query. Excel is able to retrieve data but I cannot find a 'publish' button or anyway to tell Excel to push updates back to the server.
Does Excel / Power Query support ODATA CRUD functions out of the box?
Is there another tool I could use to update data without writting code?
Power Query supports reading from data sources, but we don't support Create/Update/Delete.
I agree with you--it would be awesome to publish data from Excel without having to write any code!
If you think this is something Power Query should have, I'd go to https://ideas.powerbi.com and vote up the feature (you might be the first with the idea).
Edit(2019): Looks like several people have upvoted this one: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/12251397-q-a-can-you-perform-crud-operations-with-powerquer
I need to give power-users of the web application I am working on the ability to create their own reports, analysis, etc. in Excel. Basically they need to create some Excel sheets, read some data from the web app and than mix the result with further data coming from other data sources.
The web application already exposes data in JSON/XML format through a web api (not fully REST but this doens't matter) and I would use this channel to get data in Excel.
At the moment I have these three options in my mind:
In the past I've solved a request like this with some VBA code and a COM object (that talked with the server/database) but I am not sure if today this is still the best solution to do this kind of job.
I have learned that today Excel has PowerPivot that can read data from a web service. I could develop an oData feed for PowerPivot but I am not sure if PowerPivot is what power-users need
Another solution could bean ad-hoc Excel add-in
How would you solve a request like this?
Power Query would be a better option than Power Pivot here. Power Pivot is a dimensional modeling and analytical database (it is exactly a private instance of SSAS Tabular running behind the Excel process).
Power Query is an end-user friendly ETL tool, developed as an add-in for Excel, and available natively as of Office 2016. It allows loading directly to an Excel worksheet or into a Power Pivot model. It will give more flexibility to your end users. It is a GUI-driven interface that is a front-end to the M query language, developed by Microsoft.
Unfortunately, I am not able to help with Power Query too much, but it fits your use case perfectly.
Edit: An additional feature of Power Query, likely not to meet your needs, but I thought I'd throw in.
Power Query can read directly from HTML tables. If you present data in HTML tables, your end users can simply load directly from a URL.
Power Query definitely the "correct" tool for this within Microsoft world. It can also handle JSON and XML (and Odata) directly. How well it manages your data will depend a bit on how nicely formatted it is, but it can work with most things with a little bit of effort.
It is a free Microsoft authored add-in for pre Excel 2016 and built in to Excel 2016.
I have created a couple of basic charts and tables using PowerPivotbut can't seem to find a way to export the data to the web.
Saving the Excel document as Web File causes the filters and interactivity to stop working.
I have also read about SharePoint but I'm not entirely sure how this would work, hence why I am writing this post.
Could someone please explain to me how I will manage to export PowerPivot data to the web and how it will work when using SharePoint?
There are multiple ways :
You can upload your excel to [Power Bi site][1] after signing up on the site. This gives you some limited capabilities for free.
You can upload the excel to any O365 SharePoint site and view the power views and power pivot based charts/reports on the web using excel web view data part on excel online. This will show you all excels which have a power pivot data model size upto 10 MB
You can view these excels in power bi sites after adding the power bi plugin($20 /year/cal). This also allows Natural language query on the power pivot data model. Size limitation on power bi site is relaxed to 250 MB
I have a requirement to create KPI and dashboard for which all data comes from Oracle. I am looking for getting this data into PerformancePoint to create KPIs..
Can anybody point me to the right direction on how to set my data source as Oracle tables? If this is not possible, what are other options available for me to get my data to SQL Server and then get it to display KPIs...
Will it be possible to use Business Catalog? or will I have to use some web services? Does anybody have how to go about this requirement?
I would think the best route to go would to possibly pull the Oracle data into a PowerPivot file and reference that in PerformancePoint. You could pull the data into SharePoint list through BCS or use SQL Server LinkedServer (but would just be tabular in PPS), but with PowerPivot or pulling it into a SSAS model that would probably be ideal and provide more functionality.