Power BI Dataflows

Dataflows are a feature within Power BI which is used to connect and transform data to utilize them as datasets when designing reports. It is a good way to create reusable datasets that are refreshed each time when a change occurs. They can be used by different users within a company to create reports not only in Power BI, but also in other Power Platform services.

In order to create dataflows you must have at least Power BI Professional license and a designated workspace, different from My Workspace. Select it, and then choose an option to create a new Dataflow.

Further, choose an option for adding a new table. Now you can see multitude of sources that dataflows support. In this example let’s choose an Excel file which is held on OneDrive repository. Further you should click Browse OneDrive button, and then Select when you find a file you want to import. Choose the Sales table…

After this action you will find out that your dataflow looks like PowerQuery. As in PowerQuery here you can perform some data transformations. After you’re done click on Save&Close and give your dataflow a name.

Dataflows can be used within Power BI service or imported to Power BI Desktop and used as genuine data source to create reports.