I'm a new user to powerBI but I'm trying to use it to automate some reporting systems that are pretty tedious. There are 3 things that I want to achieve with PowerBI:
Create pivot tables, filter data, and return an excel/csv file with vlookups
Maintain a history of certain columns somewhere within PowerBI
Generate graphs/informatics & easily export back to an excel/csv file
To give a little more background, the current process is to clean the excel file received, filter, run some vlookups, generate multiple pivot tables, and create graphs within excel from those pivot tables. Some of the graphs require a history of past reports in order to generate them; we've been copying certain data from the last report as necessary.
Ideally, I'd like to input a raw data file into PowerBI and have it automatically spit out one excel file with all the pivot tables, and also have it automatically create graphs on multiple dashboards.
I'm not sure if it's even possible to maintain a history of files with PowerBI. I'm aware that you can upload new excel files, but I'm under the impression that you'd have to go through the steps of generating the graphics all over again. Resources would be greatly appreciated.
Related
I aplogize beforehand if this questions turns out to be not specific enough. The issue is as following:
I have an excel file in which there are several sheets with lots of calculations (mostly financials). I have access to the same database from where raw excel file was downloaded. Now I want to repreduce the calculations and executive summary using Power BI getting the data from database directly (most likely using Direct Query mode). But I am not sure how should go about it? Should/can I use the existing Excel file to somehow copy the work that has been already done and just change the source to database? Or will I have to do it all over again? One main point when considering the above questions is whether Power BI will be able to do all the complex calculations done in Excel previously?
Via search I came accross to a few videos where they say we can upload Excel file into Power BI and then apply the same tables from database and finally using Advanced Editor change Excel tables sources to database. But thing is that database doesn't have the kind of tables I have in Excel (lots of changes and calculations are applied to the raw data that was downloaded from database). So I am not sure how this method can work.
I'd like to automate the creation of monthly reports. I have a database through which I can export an Excel file (or csv, for the record). The table format is such that the number of columns (~500) will always be the exact same, but the number of rows (25-100) is variable.
The end goal is an excel tab with a few graphs/charts based on said data. For the charts, I'll only need to use maybe 10 columns of data out of the 500, but all of the rows.
I would like to automate the creation of this report as much as possible. Ideally, it will be able to be used by people with limited Excel knowledge. I would think I could set it up such that they can export the file out of the database, input it into my created sheet, and receive an output of charts.
This seems simple but I can't find much info on something like this. I just want to tell Excel "for every inputted file, make a pie chart out of these columns, a line graph out of these columns, a bar graph out of these...etc etc"
Power Query is where I started, and it helped to clean up the large number of unneeded columns, but I don't see where the functionality to automatically create charts comes into play. Macros/VBA seemed like an obvious next step, but I'm worried about how to set it up such that other users won't have to mess with the macros to get a desired end result. Again, ideally it would be as simple as inputted a file path, clicking a button, and getting graphs outputted.
Any tips or advice on how to approach this or what Excel tools that would be easiest to use would be great. Thank you in advance!
I have an Excel 2016 with 30 graphs based on PowerPivot. PowerPivot fetches the data from another Excel sheet, but I want it to get the data from a SQL server table instead.
How can I change the data source type in PowerPivot? I've tried looking in the Excel xml without any luck. Would be a lot of work re-creating all graphs over again just to switch data source
Thanks
Dennis
One suggestion I would make for the future, if all the users are using 2016 is to use Power Query which comes standard with that version of excel. In the Power Query loading data into Power Pivot scenario, all Power Pivot cares about is the column names. This means that the query can be changed between data source types without causing issues, as long as the same column names are changed.
As an example, I have one file that based on a parameter flag rips data out of a series of excel files on a shared network drive or Share Point. Both of which would be different data sources. The first opening a folder as the data source, then excel files listed within the folder. The other opening a share point list as its data source, then navigating though excel files.
I want to be able to create reports in Excel which read data from Google Analytics
How do I go about doing this? I find a lot of information about using Google Spreadsheets but my team is more familiar with Excel
I'd like them to be able to pivot data from google analytics/create graphs and i'd like to be able to create graphs which refresh when the data refreshes
You can easily convert a Google Spreadsheet to Excel format by downloading it as "xlsx".
I'm doing pretty much the same.
First of all, you need to have 2 separate sheets, 1 for your core data and one for your visual part (ur graphs).
In raw data sheet, get insert the data from GA
In graphs sheet, create ur graphs using the raw data.
Now, if you import new data and replace the old one, it should automatically update your graphs as well (unless you deleted some references).
In general, this could be automated, but typically you need additional tool to so so. I hope this helps
Part of my job is to pull a report weekly that lists patching information for around 75000 PCs. I have to filter some erroneous data, based on certain criteria, and then summarize this data myself and update it in a separate spreadsheet. I am comfortable with pivot tables / formulas, but it ends up taking a good couple of hours.
Is there a way to import data from a CSV file into a template that already has in place my formulas/settings, etc. if the data has the same columns, but a different amount of rows each time?
If you're confortable with programming, then, you can use macros, on this case, you will connect to your CSV file, then extract the information and put it in the corresponding places on your spreadsheet, on this question you can find most of what you need to start off: macro to Import csv file into an excel non active worksheet.