Create a Table

A new table can be created either from scratch or by importing your existing spreadsheet data - EDITable supports both.

EDITable can be used with other native and custom Power BI visuals, but throughout this guide, we will demonstrate and display EDITable images in full-screen mode for the best experience.

Step 1:

To create a new table, click on the highlighted link as shown below:

Click 'Create Table'

Step 2:

You'll be prompted to log in in the next step. Log in with your Office 365 credentials.

Sign in with O365

Step 3:

You'll be navigated to the EDITable console after you click OK in the confirmation pop-up.

The EDITable console is a user-friendly, intuitive interface to manage your users, database connections, transaction logs, onboarding actions, etc. To know more, click here.

Step 4:

Choose from the two options to create a table:

1. Create From Scratch

2. Import Data

Create Table options

We will discuss the two methods below:

1. Create From Scratch

1. Select the option as shown below and then click Continue to create a table from scratch.

Create from scratch

2. The 'Create Table' pop-window opens where you can specify the required details.

Create Table

3. Select Connection: Choose from the list of admin or user connections, or EDITable managed DB. The supported database connections are mentioned here.

Select connection

4. If you do not want to choose any of the existing connections and would like to add a new connection, click on Add Connection. To learn more on adding a connection, refer to this page.

Add connection

5. Table Name: Enter a name for your table.

Table name

6. Column Details: Start creating your table by adding the column name, primary key, and other relevant details like length, precision, etc. wherever applicable.

Add Column details

7. Add Column: Click on '+ Add Column' at the top of the 'Column Details' table to add a new field/column.

Add Column

8. Advanced Properties: Check this option to add advanced properties to the column such as Display Name, Thousands Separator, Prefix and Suffix.

Advanced Properties

9. Click the bin icon as shown below if you want to delete that column.

Delete a column

10. You can click on Preview if you wish to view the SQL query generated which will be used to create a new table in the chosen destination.

Preview Query

11. Click Apply after entering all the column details.

Click 'Apply'

The table is now created at the chosen destination and a pre-configured Power BI report (.pbix file) with a live connection to the table can be downloaded. You can now start managing your data from Power BI.

2. Import Data

1. Use the Import Data option if your data is available in spreadsheets and you are looking to import them to a database. Click Continue.

Import Data

2. In the file explorer window, select the Excel or CSV file that contains the data, and choose Open.

Select the file

3. The chosen file is uploaded. You can verify the column headers, total number of rows, and other details in the preview.

Preview Data

4. If you wish to import only the column headers without any rows, you can check the option, 'Skip row import from this file'. We would like to import the entire table with all records, so we have left it unchecked. Then click on Proceed.

Click Proceed

5. Select Connection: Choose from the list of admin or user connections, or EDITable managed DB. The supported database connections are mentioned here.

Select Connection

6. If you do not want to choose any of the existing connections and would like to add a new connection, click on Add Connection. To learn more on adding a connection, refer to this page.

Add Connection

7. Table Name: Enter a name for your table.

Table name

8. Note that the table is created automatically without having to add columns manually. Verify the column name, primary key, and other relevant details like length, precision, etc. You can edit the details wherever applicable.

Verify/Edit the table

You can edit the table in the 'Import Data' option but you cannot add new columns.

9. Check the Advanced Properties option to view the advanced properties such as Display Name, Thousands Separator, Prefix and Suffix.

Advanced Properties

10. Click on Preview Data to preview the data. You can also click on Preview to view the SQL query which will be used to create the table in the chosen database connection.

Preview Query

11. Click on Apply to create the table in the database.

Click 'Apply'

12. The table is now created at the chosen destination and a pre-configured Power BI report (.pbix file) with a live connection to the table can be downloaded.

Download Report

13. Click open the downloaded file. You can notice the pre-populated visual along with the assigned fields in the Visualizations pane.

Downloaded .pbix file with a live connection to the database

You can now start managing your data from Power BI. Any changes made to the table in EDITable, after saving (or after approval, if enabled) get applied to the database it is connected to.

After downloading the .pbix file, you might get the pop-up messages as shown in the image above:

1. Click 'Apply changes' to apply any pending changes to the queries.

2. Close the 'Pause visuals' suggestion tip that appears below. Do not pause the visuals so the live changes get synced to the database.

3. Save the .pbix report at regular intervals after making any changes to avoid loss of data.

After creating a table, you can proceed to the next step: managing columns, to configure them, and then you can start working on your data.

Feel free to refer to other sections in this guide if you need assistance.

If you already have an existing database, you can directly connect to it through EDITable and start working on it. This is explained in the next section.