Document the report before you rebuild it
Every long-running Excel report contains business logic that exists nowhere else: an exclusion, a reclassification, a manual adjustment. List every one of them before you touch Power BI, and confirm each with the person who created it.
Separate data, logic and presentation
In the workbook these three are tangled together. In Power BI they belong in different layers: Power Query for the data preparation, the model and DAX measures for the logic, and the report canvas for presentation. That separation is what makes the report maintainable.
Run both in parallel for one cycle
Publish the Power BI version alongside the workbook for at least one reporting cycle and reconcile them line by line. Differences are usually undocumented adjustments, and finding them is the point of the parallel run.
Retire the workbook deliberately
Agree a date, remove the old file from the shared drive and give the report an owner. A migration that leaves both versions alive simply doubles the work.
Frequently asked questions
- Will we still be able to export to Excel?
- Yes. Power BI exports to Excel, so analysts keep the flexibility they need for ad-hoc work.
- What licences do we need?
- Power BI Desktop is free to build with; sharing published reports normally requires per-user licensing. We confirm the right option during the assessment.