What is data? Data is a collection of raw, unorganized facts, figures, or symbols. Think of data as the raw ingredients in a kitchen (flour, eggs, sugar). On their own, they don’t tell you much. It’s only when you process and combine them that they become a cake (Information). In Power BI, the Extract step is the very first part of the ETL. It is the bridge that connects your raw files (Excel, CSV, JSON) or databases to your reporting environment.

Here, I will show exactly how you can "Extract" data from Excel in Power BI Desktop.

Step 1: Open Power BI Desktop, go to Home and click on Blank report.

Step 2: If the Home tab is not selected by default, select it and click on Get data.

Step 3: From the drop down list, select Excel workbook.

Step 4: Then navigate to the location where the Excel workbook is and select the file or folder. Note that you must know the location of the Excel workbook.

Step 5: Select the table(s) you want to import and click on Load which imports the data directly or Transform Data which opens Power Query to clean or modify the data.

Alternatively, when you open Power BI Desktop in Step 1, go to Home and click Excel workbook. This is a quick access data source option, it takes you to Step 4.

Also, in Step 2, you can click directly on Excel workbook instead of Get data. This also takes you to Step 4.

Summary: Connecting to Excel is the most common task in Power BI, but doing it correctly saves hours of work later. We’ve walked through the step-by-step process of importing data, previewing sheets, and setting the stage for a clean, efficient report.

Conclusion: Congratulations! You’ve successfully moved your data out of a static spreadsheet and into the dynamic world of Power BI. It might seem like a small step, but you’ve just initiated a professional data workflow. Don’t stop here—the real magic happens in the next phase: Transformation.