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AlexS2023
Helper I
Helper I

Automated backups: Can I switch data source if the main one is empty?

Hi all,

 

Need some help conceptually more than anything... We get a daily download of data which supersedes the previous day's data (in a SharePoint List) and this feeds our Power BI reports. It works fine, but I'm concerned what would happen if there was an error with the daily download: theoretically, we could replace the old data with Nothing, and all the reports would show a gap.

 

I'm wondering, is there a way to tell PBI to check that there is data in the main data source, and if not, connect to a backup table instead?

 

Or maybe should I be doing comparative operations before the old data is moved to backup?

 

How do you handle backups?

 

TIA 🙂

 

 

2 REPLIES 2
christinepayton
Super User
Super User

Is the original source a SharePoint list? Why not connect directly to the list? 

I'm not sure what you mean by show a gap though, you mean someone would upload an empty file? Or forget an upload? Is it using the folder connector for multiple files or is it a single file right now?

General Power BI Service philosophy is to only swap in the "new" data if the refresh is successful.  That way there will be no gaps on failure. 

 

Exception:  Incremental refresh with meta data change.

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