How to refresh data - by a shared user

[CheenuSing]

Hi

I have a following scenario.

1. Created a set of reports in Power Bi desktop with excel in local machine as a data source.

2. Published the report to the power bi service.

3. Using power bi service created a content pack.

4. Allowed access of the content pack by another user in another country.

5. When the other user imports the content pack the user is able to see the reports.

What I want to achieve is the imported user should be able to update the content pack with data source pointing exactly to the same folder on the users laptop and refresh.

The functionality I am looking at is similar to the content pack available for Sales Force Reports. When a user tries to get data it asks for the connection to users sales force account and refreshe the data . 

Any help will be appreciated.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@CheenuSing Only the owner of the dataset has access to refresh or schedule a refresh. In your scenerio I see two options. The first would be to looking at putting your Excel file on OneDrive so that any alterations you make will automatically be pushed to your reports, and the end user doesn't need to refresh since it should always be up to date. See here for more info. Your other option, is to create a Power BI Group, and give that individual admin access, but that means they have access to modify the reports or anything in the Group which may not be ideal.

[CheenuSing]

Hi Eno1978,

Thanks for the reply.   I am rephrasing my objective.

The scenario 

a) Developed reports using Power Bi Destop pointing to a local excel file c:\demo\data.xlsx as the data source.

b) Published to PowerBIService and created a content pack

c) My friend not a part of the organisation who has Power BI service downloads the content pack.

d) Here in I want my friend to use his local copy of c:\demo\data.xlsx as data source and refresh. So that the data values from his local file is imported and the reports and dashboards are refreshed for his data values.

The whole idea is I am creating an application and want to offer it as a SaaS model. Each user will have his own data values in the common format of the excel file used during creation the application. 

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@CheenuSing I'll try to answer this the best I can, but I'm slightly confused on what you are providing as a service. Let me draw out some details, and we can see where we land.

1) Content Packs are organizational, they can't be shared externally. So, if these clients are not part of your domain, you can't share Content Packs with them.

2) There is no current way to transfer ownership of a data source and "Sell" the Power BI front end... You would have to provide both the excel file and the Power BI Desktop file so they could upload it into their own environment. At which point, you no longer own anything.

3) Content Packs that you can use as a service in Power BI still handle collecting all your information. You are inputting it somewhere and they are showing you reports. In your scenerio, it doesn't sound like you own the data..., and there is no mechanism for you to provide that type of Content Pack in the same fashion. (other than to get approved by MS as a Content Pack provider, but this doesn't sound like that situation)

If the objective is to somehow monatize building reports via Power BI, you would need to have a mechanism by which there is shared ownership of the file, and share via dashboard (not ideal at all because it doesn't show up in the end user workspace) or a mechanism to collect information to continually update the reports and create an application and use Power BI Embedded in the app so your end users could access their reports...

I hope I'm understanding your objective, I feel like I might be missing something though.

[CheenuSing]

Hi Eno1978,

Thanks for the detailed reply.  

From what you have mentioned I have to use the approach mentioned in 2. 

Can this be acheieved using Power Bi Embedded reports? If so how should I go about it.

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

@CheenuSing Power BI Embedded works in conjunction with a custom web app that you build. You can learn more about it here. Suffice to say, there are Azure components that will assist you in building the communication piece between an app and Power BI. You would need to still own the data portion. I haven't explored the functionality fully, so that's about all I can comment on.

If you had to pass the data and the visuals, that seems more like a business process/transaction. I can't really comment further as I don't know all the pieces.

You are kind of stuck (from my perspective) if you can't control or own the data part...