Connecting a SharePoint Folder to PowerBI

Question

Hi all,

 My apologies if this isn't the correct place to post this but I am trying to connect a SharePoint folder to Power BI and am getting a lot of results back. The site I connect to has a very large quantity of documents and the specific path I'm looking for is unavailable. Is there a potential workaround to find paths within a site that has a lot of documents/files? Even filtering doesn't help in this situation. 

Is there a way to connect a Sharepoint Folder (just the subfolder) to Power BI?

I appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,

Answer 1

To connect a specific subfolder from a SharePoint folder to Power BI, you can follow these steps:

1. Connect to the SharePoint Folder: In Power BI, select Get Data and choose SharePoint Folder. Enter the URL of the SharePoint site where the folder is located.
2. Navigate to the Subfolder: Once connected, Power BI will display all files and folders. You can use the filtering options to narrow down the results, but if the folder structure is complex, it may be challenging to find the specific subfolder directly.
3. Use the Folder Path: If you know the path to the subfolder, you can specify it in the query editor. This can help in directly accessing the files within that subfolder without having to sift through all documents.
4. Combine Files: If you want to combine data from multiple files in that subfolder, you can select the files and use the Combine option to load the data into Power BI for further analysis.

If filtering is not yielding the desired results, you might consider using a more specific URL or path to directly access the subfolder you need.

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References:

• Connect to a SharePoint folder from Power Query Online
• Get data from Power BI Desktop files

Answer 2

Dear @Kareem Culbertson,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand you’re looking to connect a Power BI report to a specific subfolder within a SharePoint site. I see that you’ve already found helpful information from Q&A Assist, so let me address your follow-up question:

From my research, while the SharePoint Online system itself supports very long paths (up to about 400 characters), the tools that interact with it (like Power BI, Windows Explorer sync, and the underlying M language connector) can be constrained by older Windows limits or internal connector parsing issues.

For reference: SharePoint limits - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Learn

The best solution to avoid path length issues is to stop relying on the full folder path and instead rely on the Folder ID or, more practically, to shorten the path by using a direct connection to the document library itself.

Instead of using the general "SharePoint Folder" connector, I suggest use the "SharePoint Online List" connector but target the specific Document Library and then filter using the folder path.

Get the Root Site URL: In Power BI Desktop, use Get data from other sources > Online Services > SharePoint Online List.

Enter the SharePoint Site URL: Enter the root site URL (e.g., [https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectX).] Click Connect and follow the prompts.

Find the Document Library: In the Navigator window, find your main document library (usually named Documents or Shared Documents). Select this entire library.

Apply Folder Filter in Power Query:

• After loading the data, open Power Query Editor.
• Locate the Folder Path column and apply a filter based on the subfolder name at the end of the path.

This works reliably because the M connector handles the long path internally, but your filter criteria remain short and targeted. If the path length remains an issue, your SharePoint administrator can create a new Document Library and move the contents of your long-path subfolder into it.

As this category primarily focuses on Microsoft 365 Office-related concerns, our resources for Power BI are limited. If this solution doesn’t fully address your needs, I strongly recommend posting your query in the Power BI forums - Microsoft Fabric Community. We are willing to help you, but we are afraid of providing any incorrect information that may not benefit you, we sincerely hope you can get a perfect solution with the help of experienced supports and community members. We also welcome any community members to share any idea about your situation if one has related experiences.  

I truly hope you get your issue resolved swiftly. Please know that even though I can't directly intervene, directing you to the correct, specialized support is the most effective help I can provide from my position. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I'm looking forward to your reply. 

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