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Support relative path to excel/csv sources

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Boris Lipschitz on 08 Sep 2015 10:25:40

Currently, when excel file is loaded to Power BI, the absolute filepath is captured in the M query. It would be nice if relative filepath was supported. Thus we could place excel file next to pbix and not worry about the file location (local machine, shared folder on server or onedrive)

Comments (87)
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Ivan Bondarenko on 05 Jul 2020 22:34:52

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

Fully support, good idea!

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:34:23

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

Sharing .pbix files is very frustrating when the first step is to go in and modify all the absolute paths.

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Neville on 05 Jul 2020 22:33:22

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

This would be a great feature of PowerBI. Easily done with Power Query in Excel, but need the same in PowerBI please.

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John Jenkins on 05 Jul 2020 22:30:21

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

I Agree, I came to post on relative path. I would like to be able to place source files in the same folder or sub folder, and then be able to pass the files to someone else who can then put the group wherever they would like. In my current scenario I use an excel file like an .ini so that the user side can modify aggregating source paths as they become available.

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Kirk Nason on 05 Jul 2020 22:13:59

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

To add to this suggestion, we need to be able also change the path to files like .csv, .txt etc when setting up the refresh schedule.
If you think of standard dev / QA / Prod scenarios it would be common for the server name(s) and references to files to change. In my case I developed on my own machine. Then moved the .csv and .pbix files to the customers PBI Group OneDrive. As you can imagine the connections/paths are different, I had to have the customer, download and open the .pbix file and change the path to the OneDrive location for the .csv files, then use “Import - Files” to load the .pbix file into the PBI Group. It would have been easier to edit the path in the Personal Gateway Scheduling screen.

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Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 22:10:49

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

This feature is extremely useful when users need to send .pbix files to each other. I have to do this all the time as a consultant and have to use a messy workaround every time.

In power Query this was done using Parameter tables... perhaps implementing this feature in Power BI would solve the issue?

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Konrad on 05 Jul 2020 22:08:35

RE: Support relative path to excel/csv sources

Wondering that this currently is not working, since the 'M'-documentation shows example code with local (Excel) file loadings.