Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Compete to become Power BI Data Viz World Champion! First round ends August 18th. Get started.

Reply
some_analyst
Helper I
Helper I

Refresh button on the published report - does not refresh data

I have a schedule to refresh a published report in PBI cloud. But, I want the user to be able to refresh on demand. 

There is a button in PBI Service to refresh and I understand that this should pull data from the source:

I thought, that clicking this will pull data from my source (excel in shared cloud location) and update with latest, but it does not work. I need to refresh in the semantic model. 

What am I missing? is this an issue with this button? Is it for something else?

some_analyst_0-1745298794020.png

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
rosha_rosha
Resolver II
Resolver II

Hi,

If you used “Web” or “SharePoint Folder” to connect to a file stored in OneDrive/SharePoint Online using the proper link, refresh will work, but the gateway may still be required depending on the configuration!

 

Best Practice (No Gateway Needed):

To connect to an Excel file on SharePoint:

  1. Go to SharePoint Online > Locate your Excel file
  2. Click the three dots (...) > Open in browser
  3. Copy the URL up to the .xlsx (it will look like: https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSite/Shared Documents/filename.xlsx)
  4. In Power BI Desktop:
  • Use the Web connector
  • Paste the full link
  1. After publishing to Power BI Service:
  • Go to Dataset > Settings > Data source credentials
  • Set it to OAuth2 > Organizational account and sign in

 

 

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
rosha_rosha
Resolver II
Resolver II

Hi,

If you used “Web” or “SharePoint Folder” to connect to a file stored in OneDrive/SharePoint Online using the proper link, refresh will work, but the gateway may still be required depending on the configuration!

 

Best Practice (No Gateway Needed):

To connect to an Excel file on SharePoint:

  1. Go to SharePoint Online > Locate your Excel file
  2. Click the three dots (...) > Open in browser
  3. Copy the URL up to the .xlsx (it will look like: https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSite/Shared Documents/filename.xlsx)
  4. In Power BI Desktop:
  • Use the Web connector
  • Paste the full link
  1. After publishing to Power BI Service:
  • Go to Dataset > Settings > Data source credentials
  • Set it to OAuth2 > Organizational account and sign in

 

 

Hello @some_analyst 

You can use Power Automate to provide on demand refresh button

 

Bing Videos

 

Thanks,
 Pankaj Namekar | LinkedIn

If this solution helps, please accept it and give a kudos (Like), it would be greatly appreciated.

kushanNa
Super User
Super User

Hi @some_analyst 

 

This button will do only a visual refresh , very similar to a chrome browser refresh button , it will not refresh the dataset 

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/refresh-data#refresh-of-report-visuals 

Helpful resources

Announcements
August Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - August 2025

Check out the August 2025 Power BI update to learn about new features.

August 2025 community update carousel

Fabric Community Update - August 2025

Find out what's new and trending in the Fabric community.

Top Solution Authors