Introduction to dataflows
Microsoft announced the public preview availability of dataflows in November 2018. Later on, in April 2019, dataflows became generally available. Back then, dataflows were a Premium feature. However, nowadays, we can leverage them in various Power Platform technologies as well as a Power BI Pro licensing plan. With that brief history, let's discuss what a dataflow is. In short, dataflows are a cloud version of Power Query, which is also known as Power Query Online. From a Power BI perspective, we can leverage Power Query's power to prepare and shape data within the Power BI service using dataflows.
Note
Dataflows are not only a component of Power BI. Other tools and services can also access data held by dataflows.
The prepared data is stored in the shape of files and folders, known as the Common Data Model (CDM) folder, in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen 2) and managed in the Power BI service. If the organization owns an ADLS Gen...