Forum Discussion

zrichardson's avatar
zrichardson
Advocate III
9 years ago

OneDrive Excel to OneDrive pbix to Power BI Service

This is my setup:   I have an excel document that is updated on OneDrive Hourly. I have a pbix file that is connected to that excel document that is uploaded to my OneDrive. Finally, I have the Pow...
Need Help
Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
9 years ago

Hi zrichardson,

I am not quite sure that how you connect to the Excel file from Power Desktop and if you enter credential for the Excel file in Power BI Service. To make the hourly refresh work in Power BI Service, please make sure the following things.

1. Firstly, put your Excel file in a folder on OneDrive for Business, then connect the Excel file via Get Data->Web entry in Power BI Desktop as follows. Ensure that you use organizational account to connect to the file.


2. After your create reports in Power BI Desktop, save the PBIX file and publish the PBIX file to Power BI Service by clicking the Publish button in the upper right. Also put the PBIX file in the same folder as the original Excel file on OneDrive for Business.


3. Go to Power BI Service, go down to the Datasets and click  the ellipsis to the left of the Dataset you just published, in this dialog select “Schedule Refresh”.


Choose “Data Source Credentials” in the dialog that appears and then click on “Edit Credentials”, make sure that you select “oAuth2” in “Authentication Method” list, then sign in, enter your use organizational account and password.



After performing the above steps, make changes in your original Excel file which locates in OneDrive for business folder, then check if updates are uploaded to Power BI Service after a hour.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

zrichardson's avatar
zrichardson
Advocate III
9 years ago

I did the first step. I have my excel workbook on a onedrive folder. However, I believe that if you follow the steps that you lay out, you will not be connecting to a onedrive file. Y9ou will need an on premise gateway connector. 

 

What I do is Get Data from web with the url from the Excel sheet on OneDrive. 

 

Then I save the Power BI Desktop File to OneDrive.

 

Then I go to Power BI Service and get data - From File - OneDrive For Business - Then choose my PBIX file. 

 

The way you have it set up is that you need to schedule refresh, but for OneDrive files, I shouldn't need to schedule refresh. I just need to make sure that we have the (OneDrive Refresh) on.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    9 years ago

    Hi zrichardson，

    I have tested my steps and your steps, no gateway is required in both sceanrios. I follow the guide in this article to get web url of Excel file.

    However, to make Power BI automatical refresh work, you would need to enter credential in Power BI Service to connect to the Excel source, which is shown in the above Step 3. After entering the credential , you don't need to set schedule refresh setting for the dataset.

    Thanks,
    Lydia Zhang

    • zrichardson's avatar
      zrichardson
      Advocate III
      9 years ago

      If I do it the way you describe, these are my refresh options.

       

      If I do it the way I describe, I get these options.

       

       

      When I connect to the Power BI report through onedrive, I get the OneDrive Refresh option. When I publish to the service, I don't get that option.

       

      Thanks

       

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        9 years ago

        Hi zrichardson,

        Yes, when we connect to PBIX file using your steps, we can get onedrive refresh option. I test your scenario and get the following error message in refresh history. Do you get similar error message?
         

        Thanks,
        Lydia Zhang