Connecting to various data sources in Power BI

With Power BI Desktop, you can connect to data from many different sources. For a full list of available data sources, see Power BI data sources.

To see available data sources, in the Home group of the Power BI Desktop ribbon, select the Get data button label or down arrow to open the Common data sources list. If the data source you want isn't listed under Common data sources, select More to open the Get Data dialog box.

Or, open the Get Data dialog box directly by selecting the Get data icon itself.

Connect to a data source

1. To connect to a data source, select the data source from the Get data window and select Connect. The following screenshot shows Web selected from the Other data connection category.

2. A connection window appears. Enter the URL or resource connection information, and then select OK. The following screenshot shows a URL entered in the From Web connection dialog box.

3. Depending on the data connection, you might be prompted to provide credentials or other information. After you provide all required information, Power BI Desktop connects to the data source and presents the available data sources in the Navigator dialog box.

4. Select the tables and other data that you want to load. To load the data, select the Load button at the bottom of the Navigator pane. To transform or edit the query in Power Query Editor before loading the data, select the Transform Data button.