Forum Discussion
Data Refresh
Yes our product stock inventory is hosted on a website and the data from that can then be exported into a CSV file. Meaning that I have to manually export a CSV file everyday to get the latest data. And yes these CSV files all have a different name, with the date and timestamp that it was created in the name.
Okay, I see 2 options, one a short term workaround, and the other one as a long term solution:
1) Short-term: When you export the file, save it with a specific naming convention on a cloud-based location (Sharepoint/OneDrive/Google Drive). You will always name it this way on a daily basis. Since it will have the same name, the last file would be replaced/overwritten. Your Power BI report will have no issue because it will always read the file with the same name.
You can reduce some manual steps here if you develop some small automation in Power Automate to do the file saving process, but this solution will always inherently be manual because it requires for you to extract data manually.
2) The long-term solution is you finding a way to connect to the web page (or the database/data sources) behind it. The nature of this will depend on the architecture of the web page. By setting up a direct connection you avoid exporting manually the data. As to how to achieve this, my answer is, it depends on how is the data behind the web page structured/located.
As far as the short term solution, once I export it and store my file on a cloud-based platform, all the data in my report should be updated in both the deskop and online web service or just one location? And when I export that new file, will the measures I previously created still be available to me? Or do I need to create new measures since it is technically a new table?
You will need to manually refresh from the desktop (at least once) and publish the report with the updated reference. You don't need to create any new measures or edit them as long as you keep the same table structure (column names and number of columns). Then you can schedule your refresh.
Independently of the type of solution, when working with Power BI Desktop you will always need to manually refresh the data from Power BI, but that's only required when you need to develop or update the report. Else, the Power BI Service will run the refresh for you automatically on your scheduled periods.
I've moved my files into my OneDrive and my reports have been refreshing on the desktop side. However I am still strugglign to get them to refresh on the web service. I haven't been able to schedule a refresh because my data source credentials are not being received.
I've tried editing and configuring the credentials but it say it is failing to update.
Is there a way to fix this?