Forum Discussion
Power BI process automation
Hello Everyone,
Jus to give a little background I am trying to automate a process using Robotic process automation. The process involves the BOT running a SQL query, refreshing the dashboard published on Power BI service, extracting the pdf version of the dashboard and sending out an email with the pdf as an attachment. Since the process involves the BOT working with Power BI service I wanted to get clarity on the following points with respect to the power BI service.
- Power BI service connection with SQL server data - As per my understanding to connect power BI with SQL we need to download the gateway and enter the server details to connect the dashboard with SQL server. Please let me know if my understanding is correct.
- Power BI service workspaces – Currently the dashboard we have is under the my workspace area on the power BI service but I see that we have 2 other folders (workspaces and apps). My question is what is the best practice for hosting the dashboard and sharing with all the other users in the organization. All the end users will have power BI pro.
- PDF extraction from Power BI service - Is there a way to automatically extract the pdf from Power BI service.
- Refresh schedule – Since the dashboard hosted on the Power BI server will be connected to SQL. Is there an option in Power BI service wherein the dashboard can detect that the underlying database has been updated and refresh the dashboard accordingly.
- Moving from one environment to another - What issues can come up once we move from the development environment to quality environment to production.
Lastly I am not sure whether anyone has worked on any such process before but it would be very helpful if someone can help anticipate problems that might come up.
Regards,
Shobhit Malaviya
1 Reply
Hi,
Answers for your questions:
1- Correct
2- The best practrice is to create a new Workspace for your report,and pin visuals to a newly created Dashboard. Once the report and the dashboard are created you can share them individually but if you need to share the whole Workspace including the dataset at once then you will need to create the App and then share it in your organisation
3- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/end-user-pdf
4- The Gateway will do the work. If all is set correctly, once the dataset is refreshed in Power Bi service through the Gateway then the Report as well as the Dashboard will be refreshed
5- If all is set correctly then all will work smoothly and with no issues, just make sure of the perfomance of your visuals and the extracting of the data from the data source in your Powerbi Desktop.
The only technical issue that you could face is how to connect the Gateway to the Data source but since you will be connecting it to a SQL server then it should be easy.
Good luck.
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