Use cases for the multiple ways to "get data"

[EMCF Portal]

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone can clarify when to use these methods of loading data from SQL Server in Excel 2016 (maybe there is no difference)

For example, I can use one of these three methods:

1.  Get Data->From Database (Get and Transform Data)

2.  Get External Data->From Other Sources->From SQL Server

3.  Manage Data Model->From Database->From SQL Server

When is using "Manage Data Model" a better choice (or not) than the other two options? 

thank you!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

IMHO, better to use Get & Transform to query SQL server. You may use SQL query and/or transform data using Power Query, load result to data model and add measures and relationships with other sources if necessary.

Loading directly from Data Model is less flexible, option 2) looks like outdated.

[#3]

Hi Sergei,

Thank you for the response - very helpful.  It looks to me like there are redundant methods of acquiring data, but it's not really clear which method is the best for each use case.  Perhaps the outdated methods are retained if users are familiar with them, but in this case I wasn't clear which method aligned best with SQL Server, and your answer cleared that up for me!