Data Refresh on Power BI like Tableau

[jmontlouis001]

Is there a way for a dashboard to get updated without someone actually refreshing the data? What I mean is I recall that with google sheets and tableau you don't have to refresh the data on tableau. If someone changes a data point in the underlying data sheet you are connected to (gsheets) that it will be auto reflected in the dashboard without the need for someone to refresh anything. I am curious if ms365 hosted on sharepoint and connecting powerbi to that sharepoint link makes it like tableau…I am not sure if its possible but I was going to research that also

[v-xiaoyan-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @jmontlouis001 ,

When you import your Power BI Desktop file from OneDrive or SharePoint Online, you load data and model information into a dataset in Power BI. You'll want to refresh the dataset in the Power BI service because that's what your reports are based on. Because the data sources are external, you can manually refresh the dataset by using Refresh now or you can set up a refresh schedule by using scheduled refresh .

When you refresh the dataset, Power BI doesn't connect to the file on OneDrive or SharePoint Online to query for updated data. It uses information in the dataset to connect directly to the data sources and query for updated data. Then, it loads that data into the dataset. This refreshed data in the dataset isn't synchronized back to the file on OneDrive or SharePoint Online.

For more information，you can refer to：Refresh a dataset stored on OneDrive or SharePoint Online 

A similar thread for your reference：Automatically update Power BI from Sharepoint 

Hope it helps,

Community Support Team _ Caitlyn

If this post helps then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[AlexisOlson]

There are multiple refresh methods to keep a dashboard up to date. The most common are scheduled refreshes and DirectQuery.

For scheduled refreshes, you set up a schedule for when the dataset should get automatically refreshed.

For DirectQuery, the data isn't stored in Power BI but rather it queries the data source when the user interacts with the dashboard. This method is powerful but isn't possible for as many sources and transformations.