Does Dataflows connected to a Power BI report NEEDs Gateway Connection?

[JChai]

Hello Power BI folks,

I am a Power BI Admin with Power BI Premium Subscription, and I am having some issues understanding Gateway Connection for dataflows.

I have a Power BI Report that has dataflows source & multiple Analysis Services sources. When published to Power BI Service workspace, there is this dataflows Extension from this report's dataset asking for connection to a gateway in which confuses me. In additon, approving the O-Auth2 Data Source Credentials in the dataset for dataflows automatically created a connection without Gateway Cluster Name, see screenshots below.

Here are the questions:

1. Do we need to add a datasource to the Gateway for Dataflows? My understanding is that Dataflows does not require a gateway connection for a Power BI Dataset as it is stored in the Cloud & refreshing the report should automatically gets the dataflows data, without On-Premise Gateway Connection. 

2. What is the Cloud connections? This seem to be a newly added connections and previous Power BI Service does not seem to have it.

3. Why does the Cloud connections automatically map to Personal Cloud Connection? I need some help understanding how is the Personal Cloud Connection created. 

4. Is there a way that we can create a Group or Admin Cloud Connection rather than Personal Cloud Connection as our Power BI reporting use-case is for Enterprise purposes, that is, we want to avoid Personal Mode & use the On-Premises Gateway (Enterprise Gateway) that we have.

I have tried reading all available Microsoft Documentations & Community's Posts but unable to find anything related to Gateway DataSource connection for Dataflows. Therfore, any help here will be truly appreciated.

Thanks,

JKChai

[JOAOLBMARTINS]

Yeah,

I do have the same question as #1. Why do I need to configure the dataflow passing through my gateway if it's already in the cloud?

I could imagine that this might be the case when I'm merging a table from the dataflow with a table from my on-premises source.

But this is not the case, I'm simply importing both sources and not merging them.

Any answers would be great,

[raj_ldo]

I have the same qeustions, any one who can answer please?

[sergej_og]

Hey @JChai ,
referring to point 1: this also my undestanding. Just checked my gateway connections for a similar case.
I don´t have any extra connections for dataflows. Field is blank. As you mentioned it is in the cloud.

For the other points I could ask same questions.
Seems another case when Service getting updated without explanations to new features.

Regards