How to Create Cloud Connection in Power BI

Connecting Power BI directly to your cloud data sources is the key to unlocking automated, real-time dashboards that require less manual work. Instead of downloading CSVs every week, you can build reports that update themselves. This article provides a straightforward guide to creating these connections for common cloud platforms like SharePoint, Salesforce, and Azure SQL.

Why Connect Power BI to the Cloud?

While uploading an Excel file to Power BI is a common starting point, its limitations become clear quickly. Manual uploads mean your reports are always out of date, sometimes by minutes, other times by weeks. Every time you want an update, you have to download a new file, clean it up, and republish your report. It’s a tedious cycle.

Creating a direct cloud connection solves this problem. It establishes a live link between your Power BI report and the source data, offering several key advantages:

• Automation: You can schedule automatic data refreshes in the Power BI Service. Your reports will always show the latest data without you lifting a finger.
• Single Source of Truth: Everyone looks at the same data, fetched directly from the source. This eliminates confusion caused by multiple versions of the same spreadsheet floating around in email threads.
• Scalability: Cloud databases and services are built to handle large datasets far better than a local spreadsheet. Direct connections let you analyze millions of rows of data without crashing your computer.
• Reduced Manual Work: Say goodbye to the weekly ritual of downloading, copying, and pasting data. This frees you up to focus on analyzing insights instead of just gathering data.

Getting Started: Finding Cloud Data Sources in Power BI

All data connections in Power BI Desktop begin in the same place: the Get Data menu. In the "Home" tab of the ribbon, you'll see a prominent "Get Data" button. Clicking this reveals a dropdown list of the most common data sources.

For a complete list, click "More..." at the bottom of that dropdown. This opens a new window with a searchable list of hundreds of connectors, organized by category. Most cloud connectors can be found under categories like "File," "Azure," and "Online Services."

Walkthrough 1: Connecting to Files in the Cloud (SharePoint & OneDrive)

Storing Excel, CSV, or Parquet files in a shared cloud location like SharePoint or OneDrive is a popular way for teams to collaborate. Power BI makes it easy to connect to these files so your reports update automatically whenever a file is changed.

Connecting to a SharePoint Folder

This is the best method when you have multiple files with the same structure (e.g., monthly sales exports) that you want to combine into one large dataset.

1. Click Get Data > More... > File > SharePoint folder and click Connect.
2. You'll be asked for the Site URL. This is not the full URL to the folder, it's the root URL of your SharePoint site. For example, if your folder is at https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing/Shared%20Documents/SalesReports, the Site URL you should enter is just https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing/.
3. Power BI will prompt you to sign in with your Microsoft account. Choose the "Microsoft account" option and sign in.
4. A list of all files in that SharePoint site will appear. You can filter this list down to your specific folder or file type. Click the Combine & Transform Data button to open the Power Query Editor.
5. Power BI will guide you through the process of combining the files. Once you confirm the sample file and structure, it will merge all the files into a single table, ready for analysis.

Now, whenever a new file is added to that SharePoint folder, you just need to refresh your Power BI report, and the new data will be added automatically.

Connecting to an Individual Cloud-Based Excel File

If you just want to connect to a single file stored in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business, the process is slightly different.

1. Navigate to the file in your web browser.
2. Instead of using the SharePoint or OneDrive connectors, you use the Web connector. Click Get Data > Web.
3. The trick is getting the right URL. Do not use the URL from your browser's address bar. Instead, open the file in the "Desktop App" (Excel) directly from the browser view.
4. In the desktop version of Excel, go to File > Info and click Copy Path.
5. Paste this path into the URL box in Power BI. You may need to remove the ?web=1 characters from the end of the URL for the connection to work.
6. Sign in with your Microsoft credentials.
7. The Power BI Navigator will appear, showing you all the tables and sheets within that Excel file. Select the table you want, and click Load or Transform Data.

Walkthrough 2: Connecting to a SaaS Application (Salesforce)

Power BI includes native connectors for dozens of popular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, like Salesforce, HubSpot, and others. These connectors are purpose-built to pull data seamlessly through official APIs.

Here’s how to connect to Salesforce Objects as an example:

1. Go to Get Data > More... > Online Services.
2. Scroll down and select Salesforce Objects and click Connect.
3. You'll be asked if you want to connect to a Production or Custom environment. Most users will select "Production." Click OK.
4. A new window will appear prompting you to sign into your Salesforce account. This uses OAuth 2.0, so it's a secure way to grant Power BI access without sharing your password.
5. Once connected, the Navigator window will display a list of all available Salesforce "Objects," which are essentially data tables like Account, Opportunity, Lead, Case, and so on.
6. Select the objects you need (e.g., Opportunity and Account), and you'll see a preview of the data. Click Load to import them.

Power BI often automatically detects relationships between objects (like the link between Opportunity and Account), simplifying your data-modeling process.

Walkthrough 3: Connecting to a Cloud Database (Azure SQL)

For organizations with more robust technical stacks, connecting Power BI to a cloud database like an Azure SQL Database is a core workflow. This approach allows for incredible performance and flexibility.

1. Go to Get Data > More... > Azure and select Azure SQL database.
2. You'll need to provide the Server and an optional Database name. Your database admin can give you this information.
3. Next, you face the most important choice: the Data Connectivity mode.

Import vs. DirectQuery: What's the Difference?

This is a crucial concept when connecting to databases.

• Import: This mode copies the data from your database and stores a compressed version inside your Power BI file (.pbix). It's very fast for analysis because all the data is in memory. However, the data is only as fresh as your last refresh, and you are limited by your computer's resources.
• Scheduled refresh in the Power BI Service copies the data again on a set schedule.
• DirectQuery: This mode does not copy the data. Instead, it creates a live connection directly to the database. Every time you interact with a visual in your report (like clicking on a filter), Power BI sends a query to the database and fetches the result. This means your data is always 100% live, but performance depends on the speed of your database.

Which should you choose? A good rule of thumb:

• Use Import for smaller to medium-sized datasets (under a gigabyte or so) that don't need to be real-time second-by-second. This covers most business reporting needs.
• Use DirectQuery only when you're working with massive datasets (truly big data) or require a real-time view of your data and have a well-optimized database.

After choosing your connectivity mode and signing in with your database credentials, the Navigator will appear, allowing you to select the tables, views, or stored procedures you need.

Managing and Refreshing Cloud Connections in Power BI Service

Once you've built your report in Power BI Desktop and published it to the Power BI Service (app.powerbi.com), you need to configure the refresh settings.

1. Navigate to the Workspace where you published your report.
2. Find the dataset (it will have the same name as your report) and click the three dots (...) next to it, then select Settings.
3. Expand the Data source credentials section. Since your data is in the cloud, Power BI may have already stored your credentials, but sometimes you will have to re-enter them here.
4. Once your credentials are valid, expand the Scheduled refresh section.
5. Toggle the switch to "On" and select a refresh frequency (e.g., Daily, Weekly) and time of day. You can add multiple refresh times per day with a Pro or Premium license.

Now, the Power BI Service will automatically retrieve the latest data from your cloud source on the schedule you set, ensuring your team is always making decisions based on current information.

Final Thoughts

Creating direct connections between Power BI and your cloud data sources is a powerful way to automate your reporting process. By linking Power BI to services like SharePoint, Salesforce, or Azure SQL, you eliminate manual data updates and provide your team with accessible, on-demand, and up-to-date insights.

While mastering these connections is a huge step up, an even bigger challenge can be knowing which questions to ask and how to shape your data into a clear story. That’s exactly why we built Graphed. We wanted to make data analysis as easy as having a conversation. You connect your data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds, then simply describe the report or dashboard you want using plain English. We instantly build live, interactive charts that answer your questions, letting you go from data to insight in moments, not hours.