Connect Google Sheets to Power BI

Yes. Microsoft offers a native Google Sheets connector in Power Query. Catchr is another route when you want to manage the spreadsheet together with other Catchr sources and use a generated query URL. Neither route fixes inconsistent column types or creates historical records that are absent from the sheet.

Enter the spreadsheet URL or ID when creating the Google Sheets connection and authorize a Google account that can read it. Select the worksheet tabs, build a Power BI-format query and preview the rows. In Power BI Desktop, choose Get data > Web and paste the generated URL. Catchr reads the supplied spreadsheet rather than scanning all of Google Drive.

Use a simple table with one header row and one consistent type of record per data row. Keep each column consistently numeric, date-based or text-based, and avoid mixing totals with detail rows. Catchr samples data to infer field types. Use genuine numeric and date cells where possible, and keep identifiers as text when leading zeros matter.

Catchr supports selecting multiple tabs, but the columns must line up by position. Column A in one tab should represent the same information as column A in another, and so on. The first discovered label is used, and conflicting types can become text. Standardize column order, names and types before combining tabs, rather than relying on matching header names alone.

Mixed values in the sampled cells can make a column appear as text. Check for currency symbols stored inside text, inconsistent date formats or labels mixed with numbers. Correct the underlying cells and refresh the fields. For date controls, select the actual date column from your sheet rather than an unrelated generic date field from the connector catalog.

Refresh the source fields in Catchr after changing the spreadsheet structure, then review the saved field selection. In Power Query, check expansion, selected-column and changed-type steps: they can still refer to the old column names. Update those steps in Desktop and republish the model when required. A scheduled data refresh alone does not redesign a query that refers to a removed column.

No. Catchr reads the current contents of the selected tabs. If last month's cells are overwritten, neither the connector nor a normal Power BI refresh reconstructs them. Keep dated rows or snapshots when you need a trend, and relate that business date to a calendar table. Check the model's last successful refresh when recent edits have not appeared.

Refreshing an imported Sheets table loads the current rows supplied by the query. It does not create a version history of overwritten cells. Keep a dated append-only table or snapshots when you need trends, then relate that date column to your Power BI calendar. Schedule refresh after the process that updates the sheet, and check both jobs when new data is missing.