How To Enable The Power BI Add-Ins in Excel 2013 and Excel 2016

As long as you have the Office Pro Plus, you can access the Power BI tools. So next is to show you how to find out whether you've got the 2013 or the 2016 version.

How to know which version of Excel you are using

In Excel, go to file and select Account.  Then on the right side of the pane that shows up, click on About Excel.

If you use the 2013 version you will see Excel 2013

If you use Excel 2016, you will see Excel 2016.

For Excel 2013 version

The Power BI add-ins are:

1.       Power Pivot

2.       Power Query

3.       Power Map

4.       Power View

Click on File and Options

In the Window that comes up, click on Add-Ins at the left pane, and select COM Add-Ins.

Make sure the four Power BI add-ins are ticked. Then click on OK

.

That will enable/activate the Power BI add-ins.

You will see PowerQuery and PowerPivot on the Menu bar.

You will see the Power Map and Power View under the INSERT menu.

And that’s it for O365 Pro Plus 2013 version.

For Excel 2016 version

For 2016 version, PowerQuery is now an in-built tool (no longer an add-in) and referred to as Get & Transform. Accessible from under Data menu.

For the other three Power BI tools, the activation process is as follows:

Goto File and Options

In the Options Window, click on Add-Ins on the left and select COM Add-Ins.

Tick the PowerPivot, Power Map and Power View add-ins.

PowerPivot shows up on the Menu bar

Power Map is under Insert menu. It has a new name – 3D Maps.

Power View, is a little tricky to access in Excel 2016.

You have to go through the following steps to make it active.

Go to file and click on Options.

In the Options window click on Customize Ribbon.  In the left pane, choose All Commands. Then scroll down to Power View and add it to your Ribbon.

And that’s it.