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I want to know if I can use Power BI to create reports in Excel? I want a well formatted report we present before clients.

Clients provide us data in SQL. I use statistical analysis tools. The analysed numbers are in SQL again. I have Power BI on my laptop. I want to know if I can build any process where I can create excel reports from the SQL server numbers? I do use PBI for creating charts and graphs which I later manually paste in excel reports. But have no idea if complete report making is possible.

Can anyone elaborate??

Thanks!!

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  • I'm not sure to correctly understand your question but you can connect Excel directly to your database and then create graph in Excel. Commented Jul 3, 2020 at 12:18
  • @Carbon4horse, I can connect excel to SQL. But why I want to use power BI is that my organization even otherwise uses it for graphs, then I wonder if I can use only one tool to create charts and tables. The only thing is it should be full and final so as to avoid further manual changes (like header fonts/cell colors). Another thing is that I do not understand VBA. So if I am to put efforts in knowing PBI, that would be great. Commented Jul 3, 2020 at 14:37
  • If I understand correctly, by "SQL" you really mean "SQL Server? If so, are there any reasons why you can't use PowerPivot? Commented Jul 4, 2020 at 4:13

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Power BI is (mostly) the combination of two Excel plugins, Power Query (Get data from Excel 2016 onwards) and Power Pivot. The visual/report layer is an advanced version of Power View in Excel.

You have two options. First you can use Excel to have the Power BI experience in getting and connecting the data together. For this method you will use the Power Query (M) and Power Pivot (DAX) parts, these are the same as getting data and using the relationship designer in Power BI. If you are currently copying and pasting visuals from Power BI into Excel, then this method would be the best way. You may want to create your visuals in Excel, and format them to a Power BI look and feel.

The second option is to create the dataset in Power BI, getting and transforming the data, then publishing it to the service. You can then use 'Analyze in Excel' to connect Excel to the dataset and surface the data in Excel.

I would recommend not copy and pasting visuals from Power BI to Excel as you lose the benefits of Power BI's interactivity, just use the normal charts, slicers and other tools in Excel. By using the first option, you are keeping the workflow in one application without any convoluted steps back and forth, and anything you learn and use in Power Query and Power Pivot you can use in Power BI.

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