What are the capabilities and limitations of Power BI Dataflows? In this blog post, I’ll tell you more about how Power BI Dataflows work.
What is Power BI Dataflow?
With Power BI Dataflow, you can access data from various sources within the online Power BI environment. The data is retrieved from the source and stored in an Azure Data Lake. Transformations can be applied to the data, after which the output of the data flow can be used within Power BI to create a dataset. The data must then be modeled within the dataset. Various reports can then be built based on the dataset.
Building a Dataflow
A data flow is created in the online Power BI environment. Multiple data flows can be created within a workspace. When creating a data flow, you can choose from a wide variety of sources, including on-premises sources that can be accessed through the gateway.
After a table or query has been added to the data flow, various transformations can be applied to the data. Microsoft’s strength here is that the interface is virtually identical to the one used to access data in Power BI.
Scheduling a Dataflow
You can specify when the data flow should be refreshed through its properties. The downside here is that only the entire data flow can be refreshed; it is not possible to refresh only specific tables. This can potentially be resolved by using multiple separate data flows that can later be recombined using linked entities or in a dataset. However, a Power BI Premium license is required for incremental data loading.
Using a Dataflow
Within Power BI, a data flow can be used as a source for assembling and modeling one or more datasets. Currently, however, Power BI Desktop must still be used for this purpose. It is not yet possible to create a dataset from a data flow within the online Power BI environment. After adding the tables, you can apply the usual transformations here as well. However, we recommend applying as many transformations as possible in a single location—this is more efficient and keeps things organized.
License
Dataflows is available with a Pro license or higher. Users with a Power BI Free license cannot use Dataflows. However, some features are only available with a Power BI Premium license. The main features to which this applies are:
- Incremental refresh
- Linked Entities
- DirectQuery
- Storage is limited to 10 GB for all Power BI content
You can find a complete list of differences here
Conclusion
Dataflows is a great addition to the Microsoft BI Suite. Especially for smaller businesses, this can be a great way to integrate your data into Power BI without needing to know how to use any tools other than Power BI. However, if the data is more complex—and, for example, requires incremental loading—a Power BI Premium license will likely be needed. The associated costs must then be carefully considered. In such cases, an SQL Server Analysis Services environment may offer more options at a lower cost.
