Hi Adele,

When you import an Excel Power Pivot model into Power BI using the File tab > Import > Excel Workbook Contents menu, Power BI effectively makes a replica of your model and queries.

For example, let's say your Excel file used Power Query to get data from a text file and load it into Power Pivot. If you then import that Excel file contents to Power BI it will create a new Power BI desktop file and if you inspect the M code in the Advanced Editor you'll see the query connection is direct to the text file i.e. it has no relationship with the original Excel file or Power Pivot model.

So, not only would you have to re-import if you wanted to capture changes you made to the Power Pivot model in Excel, you'd have to create a completely new Power BI file.

So, the recommendation is to import it to Power BI and then build on it from there. From Power BI's perspective the Excel Power Pivot model is dead 🙂

More on it here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-desktop-import-excel-workbooks/#which-workbook-elements-are-imported

Mynda