Custom connector data refresh without gateway?

[henbri99]

Hi, we are developing a custom connector between a cloudbased service (with SQL Server DBs for the data) and Power BI.

The mez-file (connector) works fine in Desktop when refreshing the data. However, we cannot seem to get it to work in powerbi.com when we want to schedule refresh. One guy claims that we need to use a gateway for custom connectors, true? This would be less elegant and more prone to disturbances and maintenance. 

Out of the box in Power BI we find connectors between cloud based services that work fine to schedule without gateways (for ex Zendesk). Isn't it possible to develop a similar for our cloud based service, avoiding the need for a gateway wrt data refresh?

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https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-gateway-custom-connectors 

” When you build reports in Power BI Desktop that use custom data connectors, you can use the on-premises data gateway to refresh those reports from the Power BI service.”

[nhch]

3 years later and we still can't use custom connectors in pbi service without using a gateway 😕

[Anonymous]

I have the same issue and find that the documentation on this is very meager. Did you get in touch with Microsoft or anyone else?

[henbri99]

Hi!

Sorry for late response. No, we never got that far. We used the ODATA-connector for our needs eventually. Br/Henrik

[Anonymous]

Hi had an idea for a solution where the .mez files could be stored in one drive. https://ideas.powerbi.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=400e730a-75b0-ec11-826e-281878de77da

[Greg_Deckler]

For a true custom connector you need a gateway. You would need to get your connector accepted as an official third party connector to be included in the product.

[Anonymous]

@Greg_Deckler  Does this mean the Gateway/Power BI Service Refresh resources will be utilized for the Custom Connector Refresh? Or does the custom connector need a Gateway only for the initial handshake? We are trying to use live refresh as we get for Online data sources and would not want the data to come from our cloud source to On-Premise and then back again to the Service. Please advise.

[Greg_Deckler]

@Anonymous - I can't talk specifics on that, I suggest you track down the folks at Microsoft responsible for third-party connectors, there used to be a program for it that you could enroll in.