Forum Discussion

AlexS2023's avatar
AlexS2023
Helper I
2 years ago

Automated backups: Can I switch data source if the main one is empty?

Hi all,

 

Need some help conceptually more than anything... We get a daily download of data which supersedes the previous day's data (in a SharePoint List) and this feeds our Power BI reports. It works fine, but I'm concerned what would happen if there was an error with the daily download: theoretically, we could replace the old data with Nothing, and all the reports would show a gap.

 

I'm wondering, is there a way to tell PBI to check that there is data in the main data source, and if not, connect to a backup table instead?

 

Or maybe should I be doing comparative operations before the old data is moved to backup?

 

How do you handle backups?

 

TIA 🙂

 

 

Need Help

2 Replies

  • christinepayton's avatar
    christinepayton
    Most Valuable Professional
    2 years ago

    Is the original source a SharePoint list? Why not connect directly to the list? 

    I'm not sure what you mean by show a gap though, you mean someone would upload an empty file? Or forget an upload? Is it using the folder connector for multiple files or is it a single file right now?

    • lbendlin's avatar
      lbendlin
      Super User
      2 years ago

      General Power BI Service philosophy is to only swap in the "new" data if the refresh is successful.  That way there will be no gaps on failure. 

       

      Exception:  Incremental refresh with meta data change.