How to Export Data from Power BI

Getting your data out of Power BI is perfect for when you need to run a quick analysis in Excel, share findings with a colleague, or create a presentation. This guide will walk you through several methods for exporting data, from pulling numbers from a single chart to exporting an entire multi-page report format.

Why Export Data from Power BI?

While Power BI is a fantastic tool for interactive reporting, there are many practical reasons why you might need to extract the data it contains. Exporting isn't a failure of the dashboard, it's a normal part of the data workflow. Some common scenarios include:

• Ad-Hoc Analysis: You might be more comfortable using Excel PivotTables or specific spreadsheet functions for a deep dive into a particular subset of your data.
• Sharing with Others: You may need to share specific information with a stakeholder who doesn't have a Power BI license or access to your workspace.
• Presentations and Static Reports: While interactive dashboards are powerful, sometimes a static PowerPoint slide or a PDF report is exactly what's needed for a board meeting or a printed handout.
• Archiving Data: You might need to export a snapshot of data at a specific point in time—like the end of a quarter or a project—for compliance or future reference.
• Data Integration: Occasionally, you'll need to use the output of a Power BI report as an input for another system or process that requires a CSV or Excel file.

Before You Export: Key Considerations

Before you start, there are a few important things to keep in mind about Power BI's export functionality. Understanding these limitations and permissions can save you from a lot of frustration.

Permissions are Everything

If you try to export data and find the option grayed out, it's almost always a permissions issue. Your ability to export is controlled by the dataset owner and your Power BI administrator. Here's a quick breakdown:

• If you can see the report: You can generally export the summarized data (what you see in the visual).
• To export underlying data: You need "Build" permissions for the dataset. Without this, the option won't be available.
• If all export options are disabled: A Power BI administrator has likely set an organization-wide policy disabling data export, or the report creator has disabled it for this specific report.

Bottom line: If you don’t see an option that this guide mentions, talk to the report creator or your system administrator.

Understand the Export Row Limits

Power BI is designed for visualizing large datasets, not exporting them in their entirety. Both Power BI Pro and Premium have limits on how many rows you can export at once.

• To Excel (.xlsx): The limit for both summarized and underlying data is 150,000 rows.
• To CSV (.csv): The limit for summarized data is 30,000 rows. However, the limit for underlying data is much larger, up to 1 million rows (this can vary based on your licensing and settings).

If you hit these limits, the data will be truncated. The best way to manage this is to apply filters within your Power BI report to reduce the amount of data before you click the export button.

Method 1: Exporting Data from a Specific Visual

This is the most common and direct method for exporting data. It lets you grab the exact numbers being displayed in any chart, table, or matrix in your report.

Step 1: Open Your Report and Select a Visual

Navigate to your chosen report in either the Power BI Service (app.powerbi.com) or Power BI Desktop. In this example, we'll use a bar chart showing website traffic by source.

Step 2: Access the Export Options

Hover your mouse over the visual you want to export. In the top-right corner of the visual, you'll see several icons appear. Click the ellipsis (...) which represents "More options."

Step 3: Click 'Export data'

From the dropdown menu, select Export data. This will open a new dialog window where you can choose your export settings.

Step 4: Choose Your Data Format

In the pop-up window, you'll see a few options for how you want to format your export. The choices available will depend on your permissions.

Option A: Summarized Data

This is the default option and is always available if you have read access. "Summarized data" means you are exporting the data exactly as it has been aggregated and displayed in the visual.

• Choose your preferred file format: Excel (.xlsx) or Comma-separated values (.csv). Excel is often best as it preserves formatting like number styles.
• Select which data layout you prefer. "Current layout" will largely match the table or visual you see, while "Summarized data" may re-structure it slightly.

For our traffic source example, exporting summarized data would give us a simple table with two columns: a list of traffic sources (Organic, Social, Direct) and the total session count for each.

Option B: Underlying Data

This option gives you much more detail. It exports the summarized data from the visual plus every other data point included in the raw tabular data for that visual. To use this, you must have "Build" permission for the dataset. For example, exporting the underlying data from our traffic chart could include columns for Browser, Country, and Device Category for every single session, not just the summarized total.

Once you click the "Export" button, the file will be generated and downloaded by your browser.

Method 2: Using the 'Analyze in Excel' Feature

If your goal is to do your own slicing and dicing in a familiar environment, the "Analyze in Excel" feature is by far the most powerful method. Instead of exporting a static file, it creates a live connection from an Excel workbook directly to your Power BI dataset, letting you build custom PivotTables.

Step 1: Find 'Analyze in Excel'

Open your report in the Power BI Service. In the top command bar, click the Export dropdown menu and then select Analyze in Excel. If you're on a dataset page, you'll see the option at the top as well.

Step 2: Download and Open the Connection File

This will download a small Office Data Connection (.odc) file. This isn't your data, it's simply the file that tells Excel how to connect to your Power BI dataset in the cloud.

If this is your first time using this feature, Power BI might alert you that you need certain client drivers installed. Follow the prompts to get those set up if needed.

Step 3: Start Analyzing in Excel

Open the downloaded .odc file. It will automatically launch Microsoft Excel. After enabling content if prompted, you will see a blank PivotTable on the left and a familiar "PivotTable Fields" list on the right. This field list contains all the tables, measures, and columns from your Power BI dataset.

You can now drag and drop these fields to build your own custom tables and charts, just as you would with any other data in Excel. The data is live, which means you can refresh it to pull the latest stats from Power BI directly within your spreadsheet.

Method 3: Exporting an Entire Report as PDF or PowerPoint

When you need to share a non-interactive overview of a report, exporting to a static file format like PDF or PowerPoint is the easiest solution.

Step 1: Open Your Report in Power BI Service

This functionality is primarily available in the Power BI Service, as it's designed for sharing with stakeholders.

Step 2: Choose 'Export' from the Menu Bar

In the top menu, click Export. Here, you'll see options for PowerPoint and PDF.

Exporting to PowerPoint (.pptx)

Selecting PowerPoint brings up two options:

• Embed an image: This creates a PowerPoint presentation where each report page is a single, high-resolution image on its own slide. Links can still function, but the data is static (it's a picture).
• Embed live data (coming soon): A highly anticipated feature that will create a genuinely interactive report within a PowerPoint slide.

This is extremely useful for turning a dashboard into a slide deck in just a few clicks.

Exporting to PDF (.pdf)

When you choose to export as a PDF, Power BI gives you a few final options. The most important one is the choice to either export the "Current page only" or "Export all report pages." This makes it easy to either share a key insight from one page or provide the entire multi-page report in a single document.

The exporter will process each page of your report and generate a clean, professional-looking PDF that is perfect for emailing or printing.

Common Issues and Quick Fixes

• The 'Export data' option is grayed out: You don't have the necessary content permissions. Contact the report owner to request them.
• Not all my data gets exported: You hit a row limit. Add more filters in your Power BI visual to narrow down the dataset size before exporting. Try exporting different smaller chunks instead of one large file.
• Analyze in Excel won't launch: Your organization might not have enabled it, or you may need to install the necessary updates or drivers to let Excel communicate with the Power BI Service.
• A specific visual won't allow exporting: Certain types of custom visuals or those using very complex DAX measures may not support data export. In this case, try rebuilding the visual in a different format, such as a simple table, and then export from there.

Final Thoughts

Exporting data from Power BI is a common and straightforward task once you understand whether you need summarized data from a visual, a live connection for analysis, or a static file for sharing. Each method fills a specific need, from quick Excel checks to formal PDF reports.

While mastering Power BI exports helps with one-off tasks, managing analytics across all your different platforms can feel like a constant export-and-combine cycle. If you feel like you spend more time hopping between Google Analytics, Shopify, Salesforce, and Power BI than actually acting on data, we can help streamline that process. Graphed connects to all of your marketing and sales data sources in one place, allowing you to ask questions in plain English and instantly get back real-time dashboards and reports—no exporting or manual spreadsheet work required.