How to connect to my files on our company network(not in sharepoint/onedrive) from Power BI service?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

At our company every department has access to certain folders in our windows network (see screenshot below, for example).

I created multiple Power BI reports which use csv and Excel files which are uploaded in such folders on a daily basis. So if I hit refresh in the Pbix file everything refreshes properly.

But since I don't want others to be able to edit the file and want to increase user friendliness, I want to create an App workspace instead. However, I don't know how I can refresh the dataset from there. When I look for sulutions within the Power BI community, I can only find people connecting to sources in OneDrive or Sharepoint. But now that isn't the case since we use our company's network. 

So now I only can let people watch my reports in Power BI desktop. That works fine. How can I move to Power BI service?

[v-luwang-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ，

check this post, I would recommend using one drive for business for excel file then you don't need a gateway 

Wish it is helpful for you!

Best Regards

Lucien

[_sfrost · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

You can abosolutely publish your PBIX file to service and use a gateway to refresh your dataset. Make sure you can access the network folder on the machine where gateway is installed. 

For more info: Solved: Scheduled refresh for excel file with on-premise g... - Microsoft Power BI Community

Simple way to add data source to gateway is to go to dataset seetings > expand gateway connection> under the active gateway, you should see list of sources you used in your PBIX file. Next to each source, you should see an option called add to gateway, clicking on the link will take you to gateway, filling the required details. And then you can provide username and password which has access to the network drive and save. 

Once data source is added, go back to dataset settings and confirm if the data source you just added is mapped correctly. Once done, you should be able to refresh the dataset.

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