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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
6 years ago

Updating data for push dataset

Hi All, I need some guidance in understanding how to do this. I am completely new to Power BI and need to build a dashboard which refreshes every hour in a day. I built it and was made aware of certa...
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TomMartens's avatar
TomMartens
Icon for Super User rankSuper User
6 years ago

Hey Anonymous ,

 

visualizing real-time data is not that easy.

 

Using a real-time dataset means you have to use the Power BI REST API to push data into that push dataset, this article outlines the available methods: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/pushdatasets.

 

From your description, I assume it's not about real-time.

 

For this consider using a database as datastore that supports directquery connection mode and then use "Automatic Page refresh".

From my understanding, this is sufficient for the use case you have described in your initial post.

 

Regards,

Tom

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    6 years ago

    From my understanding, the automatic data refresh would allow me to only schedule it 8 times a day. However I want it more frequently. 

     

    Also, what if my team updates the data in the selected data source and none of them has a pro account. Then how would the refresh work in that case when I am not around? Does using on premises gateway solve this issue? 

     

    I am sorry if my questions are confusing as I am not able to find ways to put up my project live

    • TomMartens's avatar
      TomMartens
      Icon for Super User rankSuper User
      6 years ago

      Hey Anonymous ,

       

      there are 2 types of how you can connect to data

      • importing data to a Power BI dataset
        data will be "copied" from the data source to the Power BI dataset
      • using directquery (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-directquery-about)
        just some metadata (tables and table structure) will be used to create the Power BI dataset. The data will not be "copied" to the Power BI dataset, for this reason, there is no need for data refresh. Whenever a user interacts with a report, current data will be used. Connecting to data using directquery does not come with any limits of data refresh, simply because there is no need for a data refresh.

      Hopefully, this provides some additional insights.

       

      Regards,

      Tom

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        6 years ago

        TomMartens Thanky you for pointing this out to me. I have gone throught the documentation and my challenge still remains as the data source that my team would be using to update the interval data is going to be an excel file on sharepoint and i don't see we can use the Excel file as a source for direct query. I am still stuck and not sure on how to proceed with my requirement.