In regards to Excel Data.

[Alexand3rBr]

Hello everyone,

I have a quick inquiry in regards to Excel: In Power BI, if you pull in a Excel datasheet which is connected to on-premises database, will the data update in Power BI whenever the Excel file is updated? I understand that if you pull in a local Excel file, it gets moved to the Azure directory; but does the connection that it had still remain after it goes into the Azure environment? If not, what would be a good alternative to display data that is refreshed daily, without making a direct connection to the on prem database? I want to have a live/connected intermediary for the purpose of security.

Also, on another question: When you take a table and submit it to the Online PBI service, will the any non-implemented fields be omitted when it goes into Azure? For example; in one of my tables I am calculating something into a percentage from external cells (outside the table); will those external cells be held inside Azure, or will only the percentages within the table be held on Azure?

Any clarification and/or insights to these would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

-Alex b.

[OneWithQuestion]

I too am curious about this, I know this was a requested feature so that an Excel workbook that connects to On-premise SSAS Tabular can refresh data once deployed to PowerBI.

It sort of looks like now it CAN do that here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-refresh-excel-file-local-drive/  but it isn't very clear?

Can an Excel workbook that connects to SSAS Tabular refresh on open when deployed and consumed via PowerBI?

[Alexand3rBr]

@OneWithQuestion

Indeed, I would like some clarification on this, since microsoft articles describing these features can omit details and can seem to dodge confirmation on what things can go on. Ideally I would like Excel to be connected to a database, and then that connected Excel sheet to be submitted to PowerBI, so that when the Excel sheet is populated with new information, it automatically gets added in when PowerBI's data refresh schedule takes place.

[Alexand3rBr]

Apologies for the double post, however I am facing an issue with the Excel data source. When I submit a Excel datasheet onto PowerBI, it uploads fine; however, when I refresh after doing a quick edit in any field; that information doesn't update into PowerBI. In order to make this update, I had to open the SpreadSheet in PowerPivot on my desktop version and then update the table. Once I did this, everything worked fine and the new data was updated. Is this because Excel Online doesn't have Power Pivot, or is it my version? Also, is there a way to make it so PowerPivot automatically updates the table upon Excel's fields being modified/edited to?

Please let me know, thanks!

[ankitpatira]

@Alexand3rBr
You don't publish table to power bi service but the whole PBix file that includes reports and whole dataset. Now in your case if the calculation is done outside power bi and you've only imported table then only table with its columns will be published since calculations in table is implemented outside pbi.

[Alexand3rBr]

@ankitpatira

So what this means is, even if there are fields that are outside a table that was made with PowerPivot, they will still be logged into the dataset since they are apart of the same spreadsheet? Please verify, thanks.

-Alex b.