When speaking at SQL Saturday #292 – Detroit, I received a question which I thought more people might have. How do I get started using Power BI or PowerPivot? I have Office 365 and I can’t get to the PowerPivot Menu and I don’t see Power Query either. What’s wrong?
I am assuming in that case your version of Excel looks like this.

 

Power BI was officially released on February 10th 2014. You might think that would mean that if you installed Office 365 after February 10th, which I did here, that Power BI would work out of the box. Sorry, that’s just not the case.

Turn on the Power

In order to get PowerPivot, Power Map, Power View or Power Query working you need to turn them on in Excel first. Click on the file tab in Excel and you’ll see this screen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click on the Options menu item and you’ll see the following screen

Notice there are two sections to this window, Active Application Add-ins and Inactive Application Add-Ins. I’ve highlighted Power Pivot, which is listed under Inactive Application Add-Ins. This is why you don’t see it, it’s not active. Sounds reasonable, just click on the GO button and fix it right? No, wrong.

Type Tricky

The trick to adding add-ins is looking at the type. PowerPivot is type COM Add-in. If you click on the Go button you will see all of the Excel Add-ins, won’t turn on PowerPivot. When is an Excel Add-in not an Excel Add-in? When the Type says so. If you click on Go, this is what you will see

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PowerPivot is a COM Add-in, so it isn’t on this menu. Cancel out of here and go back to the Add-In screen and change the drop down box to COM Add-in before clicking on the Go Button. This menu is what you need for getting 3 out of the 4 powers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go ahead and check the boxes next to PowerPivot, PowerMap and Power View like you see here. Click ok and then you’ll see the PowerPivot tab in Excel.

You still won’t see the Power Query Tab, because that has to be downloaded separately, which you can do for free here
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39379
Pick the one version you need, either the 64 or 32 bit version and follow the installation instructions, which means getting out of excel first as it will only install when it is not loaded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you finish the installation, go ahead and open Excel.

Power Signs

The Power Query tab is magically added, as the install takes care of adding the add-in for you.

 

When Excel looks like this, it’s time to get started with PowerBI!

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur