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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
6 years ago

Real time dashboards in Power Bi service using data from Azure SQL database

Hi all,

I am new to power bi and microsoft azure. I want a real time dashboard inside Power Bi service. 

My data resides in Azure SQL database and i want to move data from Azure SQL database to Power BI service so that i will get the real time dashboard. 

I see there are different ways to do it. But i want to figure out the best way to do it.

I found azure stream analytics. Can i move data from Azure SQL database to azure stream analytics and to power BI service to acheive real time dashboard? If so how? 

Or is there any other best way to do it? If so can anybody explain or attach a link?

 

Thank you

 

 

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4 Replies

  • Greg_Deckler's avatar
    Greg_Deckler
    Icon for Community Champion rankCommunity Champion
    6 years ago

    Depends. Easiest way to get a real time dashboard is to connect to your Azure SQL Database using Direct Query.

    • Anonymous's avatar
      Anonymous
      Not applicable
      6 years ago

      Thank you for your reply,

       

      Yes i used direct query before to get data inside Power BI desktop from Azure SQL database. Using this method i could only acheive data refresh, with a gap of 15 minutes.

      But i need real time dashboard and i need the data in dashboard to be refreshed every 30 seconds. Is it possible with Azure stream analytics or any other way?

       

      Thank you

      • Greg_Deckler's avatar
        Greg_Deckler
        Icon for Community Champion rankCommunity Champion
        6 years ago

        OK, let me understand things a little better. Direct Query is a live query of the database. Meaning that when things are displayed on the page, it goes out, queries the database live and returns results. In this respect, it is 100% up to date live information. When you say you couldn't get the data refreshed except every 15 minutes are you saying that is how long it took you to get data into your Azure SQL Database from your source or where does the 15 minutes come from because there is no "refresh" when you use direct query, it is live querying the data. https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Options-for-near-real-time-dashboards-reports/td-p/305759

         

        Second, I have used Azure Stream Analytics to create demos of things but its use within Power BI for real production things is a bit iffy. The reason is that Power BI only utilizes streaming data on dashboard tiles. This may be OK for you, I have no idea how your data model is constructed or how complex your calculations. But, you would have to do all of your calculations in Azure Streaming Analytics. It integrates very easily with Power BI. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-real-time-streaming

         

        One other question, do you have Premium? Because I thought that there was some feature in Premium for "near real time". Ah, yes, here it is: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-december-2019-feature-summary/#APR