How do I make the Power BI service refresh automatically when the Power BI Desktop is updated?

[haleyjn]

I have a dashboard that I update every week by entering new data into excel. I also have already published it to my workspace and shared with my team. 

My issue is - although I refresh the dashboard on the desktop, it won't refresh on the Power BI workspace. Instead, I have to republish it and replace it. Is there a way to have it update automatically??

[v-yueyunzh-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi , @haleyjn 

According to your problem and demand description, in fact, the data refresh on the desktop and the data refresh on the service are independent, because when you publish the report to the cloud, the dataset will be stored in the cloud database of PBI as cloud data, so you can enter configuration credentials for this Excel data source on the service to set up scheduled data refresh, you can refer to this official document for details:
Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If your Excel data source is stored in a local computer folder, you need to use a gateway as a bridge to connect the data to configure refresh for the dataset on the service, please refer to this official document for details:
Guidance for deploying a data gateway for the Power BI service - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Thank you for your time and sharing, and thank you for your support and understanding of PowerBI! 

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

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[otravers]

You need to schedule the refresh in the service, forget Power BI Desktop. This means that your Excel spreadsheet needs to be accessible to the service, either in a cloud service like SharePoint (best way to do it) or using the data gateway if the file is on premises (more involved).