Forum Discussion
Automate
I built a dashboard that needs to be automated without me having to upload different Excel sheets everyday. I'm using slicers, cards, multi-row cards, matrix tables and donut chart that all need to be automated and updated daily. Is there a way to automate the dashboard without me manually uploading excel sheets daily ? Also is there a way that previous data will not be deleted ?
Anonymous
It depends... You old data will disappear if you overwrite your "old" old data in the excel Sheet/Table with new data. If you just add data to your old (adding new rows in the excel sheet/table), you old data remains intact (in the sense that it still exists in your data model; whether your visuals will change depends on what measures you are using)
Here are some links you can read/watch:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-import-excel-workbooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=hIbqjqp-hdc&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=l_CgIOwSjmU&feature=emb_logo
6 Replies
Please refer :https://docs.microsoft.com/en-in/power-bi/service-premium-incremental-refresh
In Feb release incremental refresh is generally available.
- @skwadu
When you say “uploading” excel sheets are these sheets new data to be added or do they substitute old ones?
If you are adding new files, check this tutorial:
https://youtu.be/9sfCDCpWTfc
To automate the refresh of data you have 2 options:
1) put your files in a folder in OneDrive for business and set your source to the files in PBI to this folder (you must be logged in to the OneDrive service and Power BI service with the same credentials and enable OneDrive refresh in the Power BI settings). This way your Power BI report will be updated automatically every hour (approx)
2) set up a Gateway
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/gateway/Anonymous
Sure, no problems.
I do however recommend you format the range of cells (data) in your Excel sheet as a table (ctrl + t). Power Bi will identify this table as an entity on import - so select it as your source - and any rows or columns added to your table in excel will automatically be picked up on refresh in PBI. You just have to be aware that if you add columns in the future, if you should check if any steps in you data transformation (for example if you've used "remove other columns", any new ones created migth get deleted on refresh - you might want to test this on a dummy table). Basically, be aware that if you make changes to the table structure in Excel, the steps applied in Power Query might affect these changes (so you migth have to edit your steps in the queries)(As regards the refreshing of data daily, see my previous post)
