Issue adding "PowerBI" (dataflow) source to an enterprise gateway

[eli201]

I have an enterprise gateway with all relevant on-premises data sources configured (and working).

Within a workspace, there are a dataflow and several datasets connected to the dataflow. If I understood correctly, in such a case there is an implicit data source named "PowerBI" created, which needs to be added to the gateway, to allow the dataset to connect to the datalfow.

However, unfortunately I can't manage to add it to the gateway. I also have an older gateway on another server, that ultimately needs to get replaced by the new one, and there "PowerBI" is defined as a source. The two gateways are similar, the only difference is that the new one only uses service accounts to connect to the sources.

When attempting to direct the dataflow to the new gateway, I am getting the following error message: Extension{"extensionDataSourceKind":"PowerBI","extensionDataSourcePath":"PowerBI"} cannot be added to gateway.

I'm aware of the threads that exist on the topic, but none of the suggestion solutions work. I made sure that the option "Allow user's cloud data sources to refresh through this gateway cluster." is enabled, and also the credentials for the source are working.

Do you have any idea of what could be wrong?

[eli201 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I finally found the issue... I think this was simply due to the fact that I had two gateways in parallel, and it wouldn't let me switch from one to the other unless I could match all the sources to gateway sources (including the "PowerBI" one). So I asked a colleague to remove me completely, as admin and user, from the old gateway and all its sources - and then magically I could point my dataflow and datasets to the new one, indeed without having to map the "PowerBI" source. This makes more sense now, as it is a Cloud source.

I'm still not sure I understood the issue 100%, but at least it's working now 🙂

Thanks!

[ibarrau]

Hi. I think you might be missing a point here. Dataflows will always be directly connected to Power Bi Dataset without a gateway. You won't be able to add it. The option "Allow user's cloud data sources to refresh through this gateway cluster." means that you can keep a dataset with cloud data and on premise data refreshing without configuring everything inside the gateway. This means that your cloud data can be authenticated directly in "Data Source Credentials" section under the Dataset Settings. Once you configure that it's enough. You shouldn't add it on the gateway.

Hope that make sense.

[eli201]

Hi, thank you so much for your quick reply.

What you say makes perfect sense for me, and I'm also struggling to understand why I need this in the gateway. At first, I thought it is a legacy issue with the dataflow, but then in order to understand what's happening I made the following tests:

• Created a simple dataflow that connects to one on-prem datasource that is defined in the gateway --> that worked well, and I could set the refresh of the dataflow.
• Then, I created a dataset based (only) on that dataflow.
• When I then try to schedule the refresh for this dataset, this is what I get:

Note that the dataset does not contain an explicit source called "PowerBI", in my understanding it created this automatically because I created a dataset sourcing from a dataflow.

It won't let me set the refresh of the dataset unless I can add this as a source to the gateway.

Is there anything fundamental that I am missing?

Thanks a lot.

[frano72]

@eli201 - i am seeing the same behaviour - did you ever work it out ?

[eli201]

Hi @frano72, for me the issue really seems to have been that I had two different gateways - as mentioned in the solution, I did not have any issue anymore when I was completely removed from the "old" gateway I was looking to replace. To be honest I did not entirely understand it though and I'm aware it was a specific case and not a general solution, unfortunately...