Confused by whether Power Bi can access live data.

[rgelb]

I think I am a bit confused by the workflow of the Power BI tools. Specifically, how can my dashboard online access live data from Power BI?

The workflow of building a dashboard is as follows:

1. You create your dashboard in Power BI Desktop.
2. Publish to Power BI online.
3. Have users access the published dashboard.

From what I can see, the data is published along with the dashboard. And I see an option to schedule a data refresh. So my question is this... Is there a way to access live data? For the sake of discussion, lets say I have a SQL Server that's exposed on the internet.

Can Power BI access data from there?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@rgelb 

There are 2 different workflows you can follow, depending on what you need to accomplish. First, let's clarify the tools.

PowerBI Online (Service): Build Reports, Share

PowerBI Desktop: Mash up data/Create models based on datasources, Build Reports

The flow works something like these two scenerios:

1) In Service only: Connect to dataset, create reports, build dashboards, share dashboard or create Organizational Content Pack to share.

2) In Desktop: Build model, create reports, publish to Service, build dashboard, share dashboard or create Organization Content Pack to share.

Live Data: you can only leverage "live" data by using the Paas (platform as a service) connectors to Azure SQL DB, Warehouse or Spark. The only on-prem solution is using SSAS Tabular and using the Power BI AS Connector. This will allow you to have a live connection to your on premise or Iaas (Infrastructure as a service) SSAS instance. As many times as you refresh that model, your Power BI visuals will be updated.

All other sources use scheduled refresh (max 8 per day)

Data is in the cloud in all of these sources "Except" Tabular models, in that case queries are passed back and forth and you data resides on premise.

If your SQL server is on premise or in an Azure VM (Iaas) then your only option is to use a Personal Gateway and set a refresh schedule.

[rgelb]

@Seth_C_Bauer So to clarify and make sure I understand what you are saying... my only options to use Live Data is as follows:

1. Using PowerBI Online (what you are calling Service), I would use a connector to Azure SQL DB, Warehouse or Spark.  I would then create my dashboards/reports right there online on the web page and let my users look at it.
2. Using PowerBI OnPrem (e.g hosted internally at our company), I could connect to SSAS Tabular or Power BI AS Connector (both of these are related to Analysis Server, correct?).  

Is this correct?

Also, when you say that I can connect live to Spark, do you mean a Spark instance inside Azure or could it be any Spark instance (say hosted at Amazon or on my website)?

Thank you

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

1) In short, yes. The only part I'm not 100% on, is how adding a model layer in PBI Desktop effects these. In my experiance, it removes the live connection and acts like a manual refresh, but I can't say that for sure/for all.

2) Correct, You could connect to you SSAS (Sql Server Analysis Services) Tabular instance. The Power BI AS Connector is the downloaded gateway that you need to install in order to connect to your SSAS instance and have it handle the messaging back and forth from Power BI. (This is the piece that gives you the "live" connection to your model).

Spark on Azure - more here