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nhenri's avatar
nhenri
Frequent Visitor
7 years ago
Solved

Automatic dataset refresh from Excel data source on Sharepoint

*** Re-publishing as a new post*** Hi all,   I've been testing Power BI recently to offer powerful KPI to my project team "on top" of their usual Excel reporting files, stored on our Project Sha...
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  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    7 years ago

    nhenri ,

    If you are using on-premises SharePoint, gateway is required. If your are using SharePoint online, gateway is not required, just change data source of your Power BI report in Power BI Desktop.

    Regards,

    Lydia

nhenri's avatar
nhenri
Frequent Visitor
7 years ago

Hi,

you're right: Sharepoint online for O365! and yes, "automatic refresh" is what I expect.

 

To clarify the "gateway" topic:

- I didn't deploy any, as I'm expecting the refresh to work "as is"

- nevertheless, when requesting a manual refresh of the dataset in Power BI services (my report doesn't update automatically), I receive an error message as if I'd have to configure a gateway (see attach.)

 

Thanks for helping

 

 

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
7 years ago

nhenri ,

>>I built the report/dataset in Power BI Desktop, performing a GET DATA and using the EXCEL connector (then browsing thru my company Sharepoint folders and connecting to the right Excel workbook

 

The Excel connector can only access to an Excel file stored in an on-premise folder, the Excel file you connected is just a synced file with Sharepoint online, it is still a local file. In this scenario, we will need to configure a gateway to refresh the on-premise file.

 

If we want to use the Excel in Sharepoint Online, we can use the Sharepoint Folder connector or Web connector. Please refer to the following blogs to get detailed steps to configure them.

 

Using the Web connector: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-use-onedrive-business-links

Using the Sharepoint Folder connector: https://powerbi.tips/2016/09/loading-excel-files-from-sharepoint/

 

In your scenario, you can replace the original on-premise source to the Sharepoint Folder or Web source using the following steps, this way, you don’t have to re-create the whole report and it doesn’t require gateway to refresh data after you publish PBIX file to Power BI Service.

 

  1. Open Power Query Editor by clicking the Home -> Edit Queries.
  2. Then refer to this blog to replace queries: https://www.decisivedata.net/blog/change-a-power-bi-data-source-type

Regards,
Lydia