PowerBIIntegration.Refresh() - Solution to Invocation of unknown or unsupported function error

[denyschamberlan]

Hi,
For those who may have tried to implement the PowerBIIntegration.Refresh() method in PowerApps and may still wonder wonder why the option was not available and probably encountered a similar error

I felt like providing a very subtle but working solution.

First before going any further in my statements, perhaps it should be important to remind that the PowerApps visualization is no longer categorized as a "custom" visual... but has now been fully integrated in Power BI Desktop October 2019 edition. 

So if you installed the latest Power BI Desktop October 2019 version, then it should be displayed as followed in default Visualizations panel.

Please note that you first have to establish an active connection in order to see the PowerApps icon displayed in Visualizations Panel... otherwise it may not be displayed. So don't panick if you have to work offline...   

So for the sake of testing, I tried to replicate a similar PowerApps - Power BI Integration scenario as the one shown by Charles Sterling in the following video PowerApps custom visual for Power BI V2  and see what I could come up with. 

1) I first created a very simple report on Power BI Desktop and connected it to an Azure SQL Database in DirectQuery mode.
2) I then added a PowerApps visualization in the Power BI Desktop report. When prompted to select either an existing
    app or create a brand new one, I chose the 2nd option allowing me to create a brand new one "all-from-scratch". 
    I also used the very same Azure SQL Database as Data Source.
3) I then wanted to add the PowerBI PowerBIIntegration.Refresh() method to OnSelect() option as displayed in the video, 
    though I ended up with an "Invocation of unknown or unsupported function" error... Hummmm 😞

So what might have gone wrong you may ask? The answer was pretty subtle in my case... If you watch carefully in the video, the PowerApps visual integration step is NOT executed on Power BI Desktop but on Power BI Online... 

So I chose to execute the 2nd PowerApps integration step NOT from Power BI Desktop but from published report on Power BI Online. Then voila... everything worked as expected. Hmmm okay then... 
 

Hope this will help others coping with the  "Invocation of unknown or unsupported function" enigma...

[Anonymous]

This post has been very usefull, thank you for the detailled writeup!

When a new app is created from a published report on Power BI Online, it defaults to a Canvas app in Phone format. Is there a known workaround to create a new app using the Tablet format instead?

As discussed in this article the PowerBIIntegration.Refresh() will not work if an existing app in Tablet format is selected, one has to create a new app from within the Power BI Online report.