Microsoft announced the public availability of dataflows in Power Bi this week and described dataflows as the key element for transforming ETL in Power BI into a “first class citizen.”

“Data preparation is considered the most difficult, expensive, and time-consuming task, estimated by experts as taking 60%-80% of the time and cost of a typical analytics project,” according to Microsoft’s blog, “Introducing: Power BI data prep with dataflows.”

There are a number of reasons why this is true, including “fragmented and incomplete data, complex system integration, business data without any structural consistency, and of course, a high skillset barrier…[and] such advanced skills are rare and expensive.”

Additionally, the self-service data preparation in Power BI often bypasses normal ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes which can limit other key players  – enterprise developers for example – from benefiting from the work. Dataflows in Power BI changes this.

I’m working on a new course on Dataflows in Power BI and thought it may be of value to share some insightful resources around this now-available, much-anticipated service within the ever-growing world of Power BI.  

To get started:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-dataflows-create-use

http://blog.pragmaticworks.com/etl-in-power-bi-with-dataflow

https://exceleratorbi.com.au/power-bi-dataflows-and-why-you-should-care/