How to Add Power BI Add-In in Excel

Bringing your interactive Power BI dashboards directly into Excel is a fantastic way to add rich, dynamic context to your spreadsheets. No more flipping between tabs or pasting static screenshots, you can now embed live reports where your team already works. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add and use the Power BI add-in for Excel, step by step.

What Exactly is the Power BI Add-in for Excel?

The Microsoft Power BI add-in for Excel creates a bridge between the world's most popular spreadsheet application and its most powerful business intelligence tool. At its core, the add-in allows you to embed entire report pages or individual visuals from your published Power BI reports directly onto an Excel worksheet.

This isn't just a static picture. The embedded content is fully interactive. You can click on slicers, drill down into data, and cross-filter visuals just like you would in the Power BI service. The data is live, meaning when the source Power BI dataset is refreshed, the visuals in your Excel file update, too.

Why is this so useful?

Integrating Power BI and Excel opens up a variety of practical use cases that solve real-world reporting headaches:

• Add Context to Raw Data: Place an interactive sales trend chart right next to the corresponding table of raw sales figures in your spreadsheet. This helps stakeholders understand the story behind the numbers instantly.
• Create Dynamic Summary Sheets: Build an executive summary worksheet in Excel that features key performance indicators (KPIs) and visuals pulled directly from your official Power BI dashboards, ensuring everyone is looking at the same source of truth.
• Enhance Financial Reports: Augment your static financial models and statements in Excel with live, interactive charts showing budget vs. actuals, expense breakdowns, or revenue forecasts from Power BI.
• Stop Sharing Stale Screenshots: Eliminate the need to copy-paste images of your dashboards into emails or presentations. Simply share an Excel file with a live, embedded report that always shows the most current data.

Prerequisites: What You’ll Need Before You Start

Before you jump in, you’ll need a few things in place to ensure a smooth setup. Take a moment to check that you meet these requirements.

Essential Requirements:

• A Compatible Excel Version: The Power BI add-in works with Excel for Microsoft 365 on both Windows and Mac, as well as Excel for the web. Older, perpetual license versions of Excel (like Excel 2016 or 2019) may not support this functionality.
• A Power BI Account: You need an account to access the Power BI service. While you can publish reports and embed them for your own use with a free account, a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license is necessary if you intend to share the Excel file with others who need to view the live report. They will also need the appropriate Power BI license to see the data.
• A Published Power BI Report: You can only embed reports that have been published to the Power BI service. You cannot connect the add-in to a local Power BI Desktop (.pbix) file on your computer. Your report must be in your "My workspace" or a shared workspace you have access to.
• The Right Permissions: You must have permission to view the report and its underlying dataset in the Power BI service. Just because you have a file doesn't mean you can see its contents, Power BI's security rules still apply.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Find and Add the Power BI Add-in

Getting the add-in into your Excel ribbon is a straightforward process done through the Office Add-ins store. Once you’ve done it once, it will be available for quick access later.

1. Open Excel & Navigate to the Insert Tab: Launch Excel and open either a new blank workbook or an existing one where you want to embed a report. Click on the Insert tab in the main ribbon menu.
2. Launch the Add-ins Store: In the "Add-ins" section of the Insert ribbon, click on the Get Add-ins button. This will open the Office Add-ins store directly within Excel.
3. Search for the Power BI Add-in: You'll see a search bar in the top-left corner of the Add-ins store window. Type Microsoft Power BI into the search bar and press Enter.
4. Add it to Excel: The official "Microsoft Power BI" add-in should appear in the search results. Click the blue Add button next to it. You will be prompted to review and accept the license terms and privacy policy. Click Continue to proceed.
5. Confirmation: The add-in is now installed! You'll see a Power BI pane appear on the right side of your worksheet, ready to accept a report URL. The Power BI icon will also now appear under the Insert tab, allowing you to insert Power BI visuals with a single click in the future.

How to Embed a Power BI Report into Your Spreadsheet

Now that the add-in is installed, you can start bringing your data to life. This involves grabbing a link from the Power BI service and pasting it into Excel.

1. Get the Report URL from the Power BI Service

First, you need the unique link to the report you want to embed.

• Open your web browser and navigate to the Power BI service at https://app.powerbi.com.
• Sign in with your work or school account if prompted.
• Navigate to the workspace containing your report and open the report.
• Once the report is open, simply copy the entire URL from your browser's address bar.

2. Paste the URL into the Excel Add-in

Next, return to your Excel workbook where you've added the Power BI object.

• The Power BI pane on the right should have a field that says, "Paste a URL from Power BI here."
• Paste the URL you just copied into this box.
• Click the Insert button.

You may be asked to sign in to your Microsoft account. This is a security step to verify you have the proper permissions in Power BI to view the report you're trying to embed. After signing in, the add-in will load, and your full, interactive Power BI report page will appear on your Excel worksheet.

Best Practices for Using Reports in Excel

You’ve successfully embedded a report. Great! But getting the most out of this integration involves understanding how to interact with it and what the best practices are.

Interaction and Refreshes

• Slicing and Dicing: Remember, the report is live! Click on charts, select options from slicers, and filter the data. All interactions will update the visuals within Excel instantly.
• Data Refresh: The visuals in your file pull data directly from the Power BI service. To get the absolute freshest data, you can use the Refresh icon located in the add-in toolbar at the bottom right of the visual. This pulls the latest data based on the dataset's scheduled refresh in the Power BI service.
• Get Insights & Share as an Image: In the add-in's toolbar, you’ll also find options for "Show/Hide filter pane" and "Get insights," which provides some quick observations. Most importantly, you can select Show as saved image. This converts the interactive report into a static picture, which is perfect for sharing the file with colleagues who don't have Power BI licenses.

Key Considerations for Collaboration

• Audience Permissions are a Must: Anyone who opens the Excel file and wants to see the live, interactive dashboard also needs to have viewing permissions for the original report and its dataset in the Power BI service. This maintains your data security. If they don't have access, they will see an error message instead of the report.
• Keep Performance in Mind: Embedding extremely large and complex Power BI report pages can impact the loading time and performance of your Excel file. For best results, use reports that are optimized for performance or only embed specific, necessary visuals rather than an entire dashboard-in-a-spreadsheet.
• It's a One-Way Street: The integration is designed to bring Power BI data into Excel. Changing a value in an Excel cell will not affect the Power BI visual. The two work side-by-side but do not directly influence each other's calculations. The purpose is to provide BI-driven context alongside your spreadsheet analysis.

Final Thoughts

Bridging the gap between spreadsheet analysis and dynamic business intelligence has always been a key challenge. The Power BI add-in for Excel neatly solves this by allowing you to place live, interactive data storytelling directly where many business decisions are still planned and discussed. It enriches your spreadsheets with trusted data and visualizations that are always up to date.

While powerful, setting up data sources and building reports in Power BI still requires a certain level of technical skill. For those who want to get straight to the insights without the complexity, tools are emerging that streamline this whole process. We built Graphed to be your AI data analyst. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources in just a few clicks and then use plain English to ask questions and build real-time dashboards automatically - no complex setup, no manual BI work required.