Power BI Limits Excel Hosting with a Two-Month Notice

• Power BI is removing several Excel workbook hosting and data refresh features with only a two-month notice.
• Excel workbooks hosted in Power BI will lose the ability to refresh data, and users will no longer be able to upload workbooks from local drives.
• The changes require redeploying affected workbooks and possibly migrating data to Power BI datasets.

Power BI announced that it will limit how customers can use Excel workbooks in the Power BI–hosted service by Oct. 31, 2023. After the October deadline, Excel workbooks shared through Power BI will no longer be able to refresh their data, eliminating a major benefit of hosting workbooks in Power BI and requiring customers to change refresh processes or migrate data to Power BI datasets. Additionally, after the deadline users will no longer be able to upload Excel workbooks stored on local drives, only Excel workbooks stored in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online.

The Good Old Days (Last Month)

For several years, Power BI provided excellent hosting options for customers who rely on Excel workbooks to perform routine reporting and data analysis. For example, an Excel workbook could query various data sources, mash up the data, and generate reports like cash flow analysis.