Forum Discussion
Refresh Power BI Dashboard source from Excel/Web
Hi,irfan_abdrhman .Thank you for your reply.
I have viewed the workflow diagram you have given. I have some questions about your description and would like you to address my doubts in detail, which will help you to solve the problem.
1. In your description and workflow, what is meant by “DashBoard”. Does it mean the report created in Power BI Desktop or the dashboard created in Power BI Service?
report:
dashboard:
Because in Power BI Desktop you can only create a report and publish it to Power BI Service, while for Dashboard, you can only create and use it on the service. They are different concepts.
So I think the “Dashboard” you mentioned actually refers to the report created in Power BI Desktop.2. For your scenario: Is it possible to realize the following effect.
When “data change” occurs in the cloud data source (excel) used for the report, can the report that has been published to the service directly make the corresponding changes without having to click the Refresh button on Power BI Desktop to refresh to the latest state, and then re-publish the report to the “Publish to the Power BI Desktop” service? “Publish to the Power BI Service” (you want to bypass this intermediate step).
For your idea, trying to implement it needs to be discussed based on two scenarios.
1. When the data source is changed, the only thing that changes is the data itself (the amount of data changes, decreases or increases), the architectural definition of the data does not change (there is no appearance of an extra column of data in the table, or a change in the column names of the table, and the relationships between the table models are changed).
At this point only the data itself has changed, not the model architecture.
In this case, you can indeed achieve what you want: bypassing the republishing of the report on the Desktop to the service.
You can do this by configuring the correct gateway connection to the report's semantic model and setting the correct Scheduled Refresh.
The latest data will be connected through a gateway (either a local gateway or a cloud gateway, which one to use depends on whether your data source type is cloud or local).
Solution:Configure the correct gateway connection for the reports on the service and set the correct Scheduled Refresh.URL:
Intro to dashboards for Power BI designers - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Learn2. The second scenario: when the data source is changed, not only the data itself is changed, but also the architecture of the model is changed (the relationship between the tables is changed, some reports have a few extra columns of data, or the column names themselves are changed) this involves a refresh of the architecture.
You must first re-edit the report on Desktop, save it successfully, publish it to service, and then configure a gateway connection for it to properly connect to the data source. Finally configure the Scheduled Refresh.The reason for this is that schema refresh is not supported on Power BI service, so if the schema changes, you will have to re-edit the report on Desktop and publish the latest version of the report to the service.
Note that when you publish a report to the web (after Power BI Service), you will have to configure a gateway connection for it in order to ensure proper data updates, and configure Scheduled Refresh if possible.
Solution: Update the report to the latest version in Desktop and republish to service.
Configure the correct gateway connection for the report on service and make the correct Scheduled Refresh.
URL:
Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Carson Jian,
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Hello ibarrau and Anonymous , I understand the concept of having the connection, but when I tested on my end, it appears that the data does not sync with the published dashboard. I wonder if the solution given requires to publish each time there is a new data in the source. I have a workflow that should explain the requirement of my question where the Excel on cloud will communicate with the Published Dashboard Online so that we can utilize the Refresher Rate Function in the Published Dashboard. The issue is that the data does not communicate with the published, where we would need to update the power bi desktop, and publish again each time for new data. This manual method should not be accepted. Please view the intended workflow below.
Thank you.
Hi,irfan_abdrhman .Thank you for your reply.
I have viewed the workflow diagram you have given. I have some questions about your description and would like you to address my doubts in detail, which will help you to solve the problem.
1. In your description and workflow, what is meant by “DashBoard”. Does it mean the report created in Power BI Desktop or the dashboard created in Power BI Service?
report:
dashboard:
Because in Power BI Desktop you can only create a report and publish it to Power BI Service, while for Dashboard, you can only create and use it on the service. They are different concepts.
So I think the “Dashboard” you mentioned actually refers to the report created in Power BI Desktop.2. For your scenario: Is it possible to realize the following effect.
When “data change” occurs in the cloud data source (excel) used for the report, can the report that has been published to the service directly make the corresponding changes without having to click the Refresh button on Power BI Desktop to refresh to the latest state, and then re-publish the report to the “Publish to the Power BI Desktop” service? “Publish to the Power BI Service” (you want to bypass this intermediate step).
For your idea, trying to implement it needs to be discussed based on two scenarios.
1. When the data source is changed, the only thing that changes is the data itself (the amount of data changes, decreases or increases), the architectural definition of the data does not change (there is no appearance of an extra column of data in the table, or a change in the column names of the table, and the relationships between the table models are changed).
At this point only the data itself has changed, not the model architecture.
In this case, you can indeed achieve what you want: bypassing the republishing of the report on the Desktop to the service.
You can do this by configuring the correct gateway connection to the report's semantic model and setting the correct Scheduled Refresh.
The latest data will be connected through a gateway (either a local gateway or a cloud gateway, which one to use depends on whether your data source type is cloud or local).
Solution:Configure the correct gateway connection for the reports on the service and set the correct Scheduled Refresh.URL:
Intro to dashboards for Power BI designers - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Learn2. The second scenario: when the data source is changed, not only the data itself is changed, but also the architecture of the model is changed (the relationship between the tables is changed, some reports have a few extra columns of data, or the column names themselves are changed) this involves a refresh of the architecture.
You must first re-edit the report on Desktop, save it successfully, publish it to service, and then configure a gateway connection for it to properly connect to the data source. Finally configure the Scheduled Refresh.The reason for this is that schema refresh is not supported on Power BI service, so if the schema changes, you will have to re-edit the report on Desktop and publish the latest version of the report to the service.
Note that when you publish a report to the web (after Power BI Service), you will have to configure a gateway connection for it in order to ensure proper data updates, and configure Scheduled Refresh if possible.
Solution: Update the report to the latest version in Desktop and republish to service.
Configure the correct gateway connection for the report on service and make the correct Scheduled Refresh.
URL:
Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
I hope my suggestions give you good ideas, if you have any more questions, please clarify in a follow-up reply.
Best Regards,
Carson Jian,
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.