Cannot Modify Scheduled Refresh or Create a Dataset

[bgre033]

Hello,

A few months ago I installed an on-premises Data Gateway, created a Data Source and created a dataset. This was all done in PowerBI Service (as PowerBI Destkop cannot use a Data Gateway), and I just used PowerBI Desktop to create and publish reports.

Now, I want to change the Data Source which this dataset is using, and this is where I'm stuck.

1. Cannot modify the Data Source of the dataset

If I go into the settings of the dataset, I see the error 'You can't schedule refresh for this dataset because the following data sources currently don't support refresh:' (screenshot 1). This cannot be right, because a scheduled refresh is running since I can see previous runs (screenshot 2).

screenshot1:

screenshot2:

2. Create new dataset

As a fallback option, I thought I would just create a new dataset to point to my Data Source and Data Gateway, but I cannot see where this is done. I'm not sure if the portal has changed in the last few months, or I'm just missing the option (screenshot 3)?

screenshot3:

Thanks for any help.

[otravers · Accepted solution]

First, Ignore the error message that doesn't actually mention a source, it's a bug.

Datasets are best created with Power BI Desktop, forget about the Get Data menu in the service as it's extremely limited. When you publish from Power BI Desktop to the service, that's where the data gateway will be used. The Desktop app is for data modeling and visualizations, it's not for scheduled refreshes, so the gateway is irrelevant to the desktop app.

[bgre033]

Thanks, that helps.

I created a new dataset in Power BI Desktop, pushed it to Power BI Service and then I can map it to the required Data Source. Since I did this, I can also edit the original dataset refresh schedule (go figure). While this bug is present, how are people editing referesh schedules?

Also, a bit of a scope creep question, what is the recommended way to change a Dataset/Data Source for a report? Without having to re-create all the visuals.

[otravers]

#1 so far when I've run into the bug it was transient so I could edit scheduled refreshes after a browser refresh.

#2, the recommended way would be to substitute the Source step in Power Query, which will work if the output of that step is exactly the same as the previous one (otherwise it's likely the rest of the query will break because of mismatched columns, data types etc). Obviously don't rename columns either or dependent measure/visuals will break.

If you have a bunch of dependent queries, it would be a good idea to use a parameter to make things more portable in the future. And since you'll have to edit your queries anyway, you might as well look into dataflows and do all your transformations there, upstream of your dataset.

[bgre033]

Thanks, again, appreciate your time.