Forum Discussion

fredrikg's avatar
fredrikg
Helper I
10 years ago
Solved

Refresh Excel without refreshing through connections

Hi, The subject might sound strange, but here is what I am trying to do:   I have an Excel document with a data model that I load from SQL Server, on-premise. Our IT-department won't let me instal...
Need Help
  • Youssef's avatar
    Youssef
    10 years ago

    Hi fredrikg,

     

    Wondering how this worked for you? ashishrj's solution should work. You can also keep using Excel 2013, and Power BI will pick up the changes made on the OneDrive file automatically without needing to click 'refresh now'. All files uploaded from both OneDrive for Business and personal OneDrive are kept up to date with the OneDrive version.

     

    When you clicked Refresh Now, Power BI attempted to refresh the actual connections (which are to your on prem database), that;s why it showed you that error since it needs the gateway to access that source.

     

    Hope this helps. Let us know if you are still facing issues.

ashishrj's avatar
ashishrj
Power Participant
10 years ago

fredrikg You can try moving data in Excel 2016 and upload your file on One Drive for Business and you can see that you can directly publish file to Power BI Online and without the need of Gateway to refresh. Simply keep updating your Excel file updated and rest will do your work. I have tried this and works smooth. For more info on this read blog provided here.

Hope this helps!

fredrikg's avatar
fredrikg
Helper I
10 years ago

Thanks, ashishrj.

 

Do you know if this works even if my Excel workbook's data model has data connections? That is what causing my problem - if I upload a workbook with the data stored in the workbook itself (and linked into the data model), refresh works fine, even with Excel 2013.

 

Just want to check before I ask my boss to get me a license of Office 2016 :-)

 

/Fredrik