Column detected as Text instead of Number

[dataguy9980]

Possibly a simple question.

I'm connecting to a .csv file in OneDrive and one of my columns (-1 to 12 values) are being detected as text and I can't seem to find where to 'override' Power BI to force it to format the cells as a number.

I am not using Power BI Desktop, just the online service.  I can do this in Power BI Desktop, but my dataset does not seem to refresh after I publish the report to the service and update the csv file.

Seems like this should be simple enough, but I've only been playing with Power BI for a couple weeks.

Thanks for any help!

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@dataguy9980 You won't be able to do that in the Service, you need to change formats in the Desktop.

If the refresh isn't working, I would guess that you either need to install the personal gateway, or put it in a cloud location where you don't need a gateway.

[dataguy9980]

Thanks.  That is unfortunate the service doesn't have that kind of simple functionality.

For my sync issue, this is how I created the PBIX file.

Get Data > .csv file from OneDrive for Business.

Change column format to Number (actually, the Desktop version detects it properly and I didn't have to do anything).

Create a couple visualizations.

Publish to PowerBI Service.

Am I missing something?  My goal is to just update the .csv files (scheduled data dump from a FileMaker database) in OneDrive and have the Dashboard/Reports update/refresh automatically.

My refresh works if I connect the Service directly to the .csv files, but then my columns aren't formatted properly 😞

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@dataguy9980 You need to create a connection to Web and input the external url for the folder containing the csv. see here

[dataguy9980]

I tried it that way too.  I think the problem was I published the 'Report' and not the PBIX file.  Like I said, I'm new here!

Playing with saving the PBIX file to OneDrive and selecting that as the dataset source now.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @dataguy9980,

After you use the way suggested by @Seth_C_Bauer to get data from .csv file in Power BI desktop, you can save the .pbix and publish it to service follow this article: Publish from Power BI Desktop. You needn't to upload the .pbix to OneDrive. Then you can enter the credential for data source and schedule refresh below:

Reference:
Configuring scheduled refresh

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu