Using the desktop app remotely to creatre reports - dataset refresh fails

[Jaydeebe]

Should we be using the Power BI app remotely by connecting to the datasource using a URL? 

When we do this the datasets will not refresh because they look for the external database URL instead of the internal server name that is already registered as a datasource in the BI gateway.  We get an error when trying to add the datasource to the gateway using the URL.

SQL server data source and Power BI gateway on same onsite server.

Reports created in desktop app onsite using internal datasource name refresh of dsatasets works

Reports created in web portal using internal datasource name refresh of datasets works

Reports cvreated using the desktop app while connected remotely using URL fail - can't find server.

Error when trying to add datasource with external url and port

Unable to connect: We encountered an error while trying to connect to . Details: "We could not register this data source for any gateway instances within this cluster. Please find more details below about specific errors for each gateway instance."Hide details

Underlying error code:	-2146232060
Underlying error message:	A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 25 - Connection string is not valid)
DM_ErrorDetailNameCode_UnderlyingHResult:	-2146232060
DM_ErrorDetailNameCode_UnderlyingNativeErrorCode:	87

[v-alq-msft]

Hi, @Jaydeebe 

It is available to refresh the external data source if the data source and the gateway are on the same machine, and you are the gateway admin or in the user list for the data source. The on-premises data gateway acts as a bridge to provide quick and secure data transfer between on-premises data (data that isn't in the cloud) and several Microsoft cloud services. I'd like to suggest you check if the gateway can access the data source successfully.

About how a gateway works, you may refer to the document .

Best Regards

Allan

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Jaydeebe]

Hi @v-alq-msft Allan, thank you for responding.

Currently the company only use one data source and that is a SQL server that also runs the BI Gateway service.

The datasource is registered successfully using the local server name.

I have read the documentation but still can't find a definitive answer - 

To connect the PowerBIdesktop app to the datasource remotely we use an url and port.

If we create a report then it uses the external url as the datasource but fails to refresh as that url is not the same as the registered datasource in ther BI Gateway.

We cannot add the datasource to the BI gateway using the external url:port.  This is logged with MS BI Support but they have passed it to the SQL team. 

Using the portal to create reports works fine as it uses the registered datasource.

What I really want to know is if we should be using the Desktop app remotely this way and if we should then how do you deal wiht the fact that the datsource has a different name depening on if you are remote or onsite.

thank you 

Jeff

[Jaydeebe]

Can anybody tell me if they use the power BI Desktop app remotely (no vpn, no RDS) to connect to an onsite SQL database and create reports that autorefresh successfully?  

If you do then can you tell me what method you use to connect the database?

I thought this would be a fairly easy question to answer but BI Support have taken a week so far with no answer other than its with the product team and will update me as soon as possible.

thank you