Power BI supports a wide range of data sources that you can connect to and use for your reports and dashboards. These data sources can be both cloud-based and on-premises, offering flexibility in terms of the type and location of your data.

Here are the main categories of data sources in Power BI:

1. File-based Data Sources

• Excel: You can import data from Excel workbooks (XLSX, XLSM).
• CSV: Import data from CSV files.
• XML: Read data from XML files.
• JSON: Connect to and import data from JSON files.
• Text: Use plain text files (such as delimited data files).

2. Database Data Sources

• SQL Server: Connect to SQL Server databases (on-premises or in Azure).
• Azure SQL Database: For cloud-based SQL Server databases.
• MySQL: Connect to MySQL databases.
• PostgreSQL: Support for PostgreSQL databases.
• Oracle Database: Connect to Oracle databases.
• IBM DB2: Support for IBM’s DB2 databases.
• SQLite: Use SQLite databases.
• Teradata: For Teradata data warehouses.

3. Cloud-based Data Sources

• Azure Blob Storage: Use Azure’s cloud-based object storage.
• Azure Data Lake Storage: Access big data stored in Azure Data Lake.
• Azure Table Storage: Retrieve data from Azure Table Storage.
• Google BigQuery: Connect to Google’s BigQuery service.
• Amazon Redshift: Support for Amazon’s Redshift data warehouse.
• Snowflake: Connect to Snowflake data cloud platform.
• Salesforce: Direct connection to Salesforce data.
• Google Analytics: Pull data from Google Analytics.

4. Online Services

• Power BI Service: Directly access datasets published in the Power BI cloud service.
• SharePoint Online: Import data from SharePoint lists.
• Microsoft Exchange: Pull data from Exchange.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365: Connect to various Dynamics 365 applications.
• Adobe Analytics: Direct integration with Adobe Analytics.
• Facebook: Get data from Facebook.
• Mailchimp: For marketing and email data.

5. Web and OData Feeds

• Web: You can fetch data from web pages using their URL (HTML scraping).
• OData Feed: Connect to any data that exposes an OData service.
• REST API: Use custom REST APIs for data extraction.

6. Other Data Sources

• R Script: Use R scripts for data transformation and analysis.
• Python Script: Use Python for advanced data processing.
• Hadoop: Connect to Hadoop-based data sources, including HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System).
• SAP BW: Integrate with SAP Business Warehouse (BW) systems.
• SAP HANA: Connect to SAP’s HANA in-memory database.

7. DirectQuery Sources

• SQL Server: You can query data live without importing it.
• Azure SQL Database: Direct querying on Azure SQL databases.
• Google BigQuery: Query Google BigQuery in real-time.
• Snowflake: Real-time querying of Snowflake data.

8. Power BI Dataflows

• Dataflows are collections of Power Query queries that you create and manage in Power BI, which can be shared across reports.

9. Other Services for Advanced Analytics

• Azure Machine Learning: Incorporate Azure Machine Learning models into Power BI.
• Microsoft Cognitive Services: Use AI-powered services (e.g., Text Analytics, Image Recognition).