While Power BI is the go-to program for large-scale analyses, Excel offers great flexibility for smaller scales of data. The variety of widgets in Excel allow for a multi-faceted approach–as long as you’re working with smaller groups of data. At a certain point, once my data sets or extrapolations grow too large, I import the data into Power BI, as it’s the only way to process those large sets in any meaningful way.
You can use Excel to clean and prepare your data before importing it into Power BI. Excel can also be used to create calculated columns and measures that can be used in Power BI visualizations.
I prefer to input complete data sets into Power BI, and then import smaller sets into Excel as needed for access to their additional widgets. I’ve found that Excel and Power BI can be effortlessly integrated; since data sets are easily imported from one program into the other, sometimes Excel and Power BI almost feel like using two different parts of the same program. The two programs in tandem make for a source of rich data insight. You don’t often see such compatibility between two analysis programs–and it’s especially helpful in data heavy exchanges, where any inadvertent changes can disrupt whole studies.
We use an integration that connects Excel to our eCommerce platform. The integration syncs data between the two systems, saving us a ton of time in duplicated manual data entry. It also ensures that there are no data inconsistencies, which can be a real nightmare for your business.
You can use Excel in combination with Power BI to quickly and easily create powerful data visualizations. Power BI provides a suite of tools that allow you to connect to data sources, transform and shape your data, and then create stunning visualizations that can be easily shared with others. Excel provides an easy-to-use interface for working with data, so combining the two tools allows you to get the best of both worlds.