There are a few ways to connect Excel to a PowerBI Desktop file. The easiest way meanwhile is to use DAX Studio (can be downloaded for free here: https://daxstudio.org/)
Steps are as follows:
1. Open PowerBI Desktop file that you want to connect to. In my case I opened CoronaPBI file that I was working on.
3. In the DAX Studio, enable these options: Show External Tools should be checked. You may as well check all the other Preview Features.
4. Go to Advanced Tab of DAX Studio and simply click on last icon Excel under External Tools group.
5. This will open the Excel and connect to the PowerBI via pivot table as follows:
Now you are all set!
Some things to consider:
- Your connection to Excel will only work as long as you have your PowerBI session open. Once you close your PowerBI, DAX Studio, your Excel will not be connected anymore.
- In order to reconnect to the PowerBI after you closed your session, you will have to create a new connection in the above mentioned steps every time.
Tip: If you already created customized pivots / views of data in your excel and you will not want to recreate them again from scratch you can do the following:
- Open your old excel with customized pivot views that is disconnected from PowerBI
- Open PowerBI file and DAX Studio.
- Connect PowerBI to Excel using brand new connection as in the steps above.
- Open Connection Properties in Excel
- Copy the connection string: example below
- Paste the connection string to your old excel file replacing the old connection string.
- You should be all set and reconnected to PowerBI file again!