I'm wanting to setup a database that is currently in Excel into Access or Power BI. I've worked with Access (at previous job) - but was mainly updating and researching information.

Is it that difficult to set up in general? I know I can import the data from excel - just seeking someone who has experience before I go messing around with it. It would also be helpful if I could integrate it with Google Drive, which is what my clients currently use for most management of files.

Ask Chatgpt questions along the way, it should help.

what are you trying to accomplish - what are your use cases and what data is this...

Can you give some examples.

CapCity12thMan said:

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what are you trying to accomplish - what are your use cases and what data is this...

Can you give some examples.

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This. Knowing that could drive the discussion toward a different solution altogether.

It's not hard to set up, given that your Excel data is fairly clean and you identify primary keys and alternate keys ahead of time. Learn SQL if haven't already and you'll be ahead of the game.

still do not understand what problem we are trying to solve

He mentioned Power BI, so I suspect he wants data visualizations. Access can do that task but might not be the best choice long term or for scalability.

a business requirement isn't to "create a database" or "use Power BI" (or some other random tool)...if you just want to dump excel into another tool - go ahead and knock yourself out.

What kind of data are we working with and what do we want to do with it to solve what problem.

Power BI is the tool you want.

Open Power BI Desktop and hit Get Data-->pull in your Excel data.

DAX is a little different than Excel formulas, but they're pretty similar and the help tool is great for custom columns with calculations.

Google Drive doesn't always work well with MS applications. I would do some research on that as well before you go building something in Access.

I live in both worlds primarily with Excel and Sheets and it can be a real PITA having to jump back and forth.

And I would agree with CapCity12thMan....Access may not even be the right tool for the job here. If you are wanting to do visualization then Access would be worthless compared to PowerBI and some other tools.