Published report using Import or DirectQuery

[dominicjake]

Hi,

I plan on publishing various reports created in PowerBI in desktop for use of other team members. We are using Google BigQuery for the source of data. If I use Import, will it affect the published report in terms of getting updated?

For example, I've published the report today 27-Feb-21, and on the 28-Feb-21, our BigQuery would already contain the 27-Feb-21 data, my question is will the published report be able to pick up the updated data in BiqQuery or I need to refresh it also on PowerBI desktop and republish the same report so it's updated also on the web?

I tried DirectQuery before and noted that data gets updated on its own when we look at the publish report, however the DirectQuery doesn't have the "transform data" function so I'm interested to know whether "Import" would work with our case.

Thank you!

[mahoneypat · Accepted solution]

In import mode (recommended unless your dataset has many millions of rows), your model will need to be refreshed.  In desktop, you would hit the Refresh button in the ribbon.  For your published report, you would need to set us Scheduled Refresh in the Power BI service.

Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

Pat

[v-jingzhang · Accepted solution]

Hi @dominicjake 

When you publish a report to Power BI Service, you will see it is split into report and dataset. You can refresh the dataset manually or set a scheduled refresh plan on Service, so that it will re-import the data from your data source into the dataset. You need to edit Data source credentials on Dataset Settings page before refresh the dataset. You can also set Scheduled refresh plan on this page.

Additionally, if you use DirectQuery, you should be able to transform data in Power Query Editor. Can you open Power Query Editor from below button when you connecting to Google BigQuery data source with DirectQuery?

Regards,
Community Support Team _ Jing
If this post helps, please Accept it as the solution to help other members find it.

[janinebp]

Hello @v-jingzhang! I'm having issues refreshing BigQuery datasets on the PowerBI service. After a while of setting up my credentials I'm getting the "data source can't be refreshed because the credentials are invalid." message, causing my refreshes to fail. If I reauthenticate it'll work but it'll happen again a bit later. This is the case with both the BigQuery and ODBC connectors, the latter both in user and service account auth modes.
Any insights?

[mahoneypat · Accepted solution]

In import mode (recommended unless your dataset has many millions of rows), your model will need to be refreshed.  In desktop, you would hit the Refresh button in the ribbon.  For your published report, you would need to set us Scheduled Refresh in the Power BI service.

Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

Pat