What Data Source Can We Use in Power BI?
Power BI's real strength lies in its ability to connect with a staggering number of data sources, turning scattered information into clear, interactive visuals. From the simple Excel sheet on your desktop to live data streaming from cloud services, Power BI is designed to be your central hub for business intelligence. This guide will walk you through the most common types of data you can pull into your dashboards, helping you understand how to bring all your business metrics under one roof.
The Foundations: Files and Folders
For many people, data analysis starts with basic files. These are often the most straightforward sources to connect and are perfect for learning the ropes of Power BI or for one-off analysis projects.
Excel Workbooks (.xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb)
The trusty spreadsheet is the most common starting point for Power BI users. Almost every business runs on Excel in some capacity, making it a familiar and accessible data source. You can connect to specific tables, ranges, or entire sheets within a workbook.
Pro Tip: For the cleanest import, format your data as a proper Excel Table before connecting. This allows Power BI to recognize headers and data types more reliably and makes your data model much easier to update if new rows are added later.
Connecting is easy:
Open Power BI Desktop.
Go to the Home ribbon and click Get Data > Excel Workbook.
Navigate to your file, and a Navigator window will let you select which tables or sheets to import.
Text/CSV Files (.csv, .txt)
Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files are the universal language of simple, raw data. Nearly every application, from an e-commerce platform to an email marketing tool, allows you to export data into a CSV. They are lightweight and easy to work with, though they lack the formatting and formula capabilities of Excel.
When you connect to a CSV, Power BI does a good job of guessing the delimiter (usually a comma) and data types, but you can adjust these settings in the Power Query Editor if needed.
XML or JSON Files (.xml, .json)
These structured text files are commonly used for data interchange on the web, especially through APIs. If you have data in an XML or JSON format, Power BI can parse it, understand its hierarchical structure, and transform it into a tabular format that you can use for reports.
Connecting to a Whole Folder
What if you get a new sales report as a CSV file every single day? Connecting to each one individually would be a nightmare. Instead, you can point Power BI to a folder. It will combine all the files in that folder into a single table, assuming they share the same structure. You can set this up to refresh, so anytime you drop a new file into the folder, your report updates automatically. This is incredibly powerful for automating repetitive reporting tasks.
Stepping Up: Databases
While files are great, the core of most established businesses runs on databases. These systems are designed to store and manage large volumes of structured data efficiently. Power BI has native connectors for virtually every significant database out there.
Relational Databases
This is the most common type of database, where data is organized into tables with defined relationships. Power BI shines here, allowing you to not only connect to tables but also maintain those relationships in your data model.
Popular choices include:
SQL Server: A Microsoft product, the integration with Power BI is seamless and highly optimized.
MySQL: A popular open-source database used by countless web applications.
PostgreSQL: Another powerful open-source database known for its stability and advanced features.
Oracle Database: A widely used database system in large enterprises.
Amazon Redshift: A cloud data warehouse solution from AWS.
Import vs. DirectQuery
When connecting to databases, Power BI gives you a crucial choice: Import or DirectQuery.
Import: This is the default option. Power BI copies a snapshot of the data and stores it within your Power BI file (.pbix). It's incredibly fast because all calculations are done locally, but it means your data is only as fresh as your last refresh, and it can struggle with massive datasets (over 1 GB).
DirectQuery: This option creates a live connection to the database. Instead of copying the data, Power BI sends queries directly to the source database every time you interact with a visualization. This is amazing for near-real-time data and absolutely massive datasets, but the performance of your dashboard depends entirely on the speed of the underlying database.
Choosing between them depends on your need for real-time data versus the need for blazing-fast dashboard performance.
In the Cloud: Online Services & Platforms
Today, business data doesn't just live in files and local databases, it’s scattered across dozens of online services and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms. Power BI's extensive library of connectors for these services is what makes it such a comprehensive analytics tool.
Microsoft Ecosystem (Microsoft Fabric / Power Platform)
As you'd expect, Power BI integrates perfectly with other Microsoft products. If your business uses the Microsoft stack, combining data is incredibly simple.
SharePoint Lists & Folders: Pull data directly from SharePoint lists or combine files stored in a SharePoint folder, just as you would a local one.
Power BI Datasets & Dataflows: You can build reports on top of existing datasets that you or a teammate have already created and published. This is a fantastic way to ensure everyone in the organization is using a single, consistent source of truth.
Microsoft Exchange: Analyze data from your mail, calendar, or contacts.
Azure Data Services
If your data infrastructure lives in Microsoft Azure, you have a wealth of powerful, scalable connection options:
Azure SQL Database: Microsoft's cloud-based version of SQL Server.
Azure Synapse Analytics: An enterprise-grade analytics service that brings together data warehousing and Big Data analytics.
Azure Blob Storage / Data Lake Storage: Connect to files (like Parquet files, CSVs, etc.) stored in the cloud.
These connectors are built for handling massive amounts of data efficiently and securely.
Third-Party SaaS Applications
This is where things get really interesting for connecting your business operations. Power BI has built-in connectors that let you link directly to your accounts on popular platforms, pulling your data in with just a few clicks. This allows you to consolidate metrics from different departments into one dashboard.
Common examples include:
Sales & CRM: Salesforce, Dynamics 365
Marketing Analytics: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics
Financials: Quickbooks Online, Smartsheet
Web & Social Media: Data from a "Web" source by just providing a URL.
Connecting to these apps lets you answer cross-functional questions, like "How did that marketing campaign on Google Analytics affect sales opportunities in Salesforce?" without having to manually export and combine CSVs.
Other Powerful Connections
Beyond these primary categories, Power BI includes several other ways to get data, covering nearly any edge case you can think of.
From Web: Have data in a table on a webpage? You can give Power BI the URL, and it will attempt to extract the tables from the HTML for you. It's surprisingly effective for things like scraping stock prices or public data tables.
OData Feed: A standardized web protocol for requesting and updating data. If you have an application that provides an OData feed, Power BI can easily connect to it.
Blank Query: For the ultimate power user. This opens up the Power Query editor with a blank slate, allowing you to write custom "M" code to connect to almost any API or data source that doesn't have a native connector. It requires more technical skill but offers unlimited flexibility.
Essentially, if you can access a piece of data somehow, there is almost always a way to get it into Power BI.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the question isn't "what can Power BI connect to?," but rather "what can't it connect to?" From the most basic CSV file to massive enterprise data warehouses and dozens of SaaS applications, Power BI is built to centralize all your business data, no matter where it lives. This vast connectivity is what empowers you to see the full picture of your business performance.
Of course, managing dozens of connectors and spending hours building reports in a tool like Power BI can still become a full-time job, especially for marketing and sales teams who need answers fast. That’s why we built Graphed to simplify the entire process. We let you connect your key data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, Facebook Ads, or HubSpot - with one click. From there, you just describe the dashboard you want in simple English, and our AI builds it in seconds, with your data updating in real time. It’s all the power of consolidated reporting without the steep learning curve.