Refreshing a Report with a Sharepoint data source

[Anonymous]

Hi all, im sure this has been asked before (I cannot seem to find a solution that works for me.)

I have an excel file in Sharepoint that is a data source for a pbi report I created on desktop. I then published the report to PBI Service. I wanted to test the refresh, so I went into sharepoint, opened the excel file, and created a column called "test_column". I saved the file, then went to the report in PBI Service, refreshed, and its not showing the newly added column. 

When I update the excel file and then open the report on desktop, it does reflect the changes. 

What am I doing wrong here? Please help! Thank you 🙂 

[audreygerred · Accepted solution]

When you refresh in service it will not change the schema of the model (i.e. a new column). It will add in new rows. When you want to change the model schema with a new column of data you need to refresh from desktop and publish to service. When you add new rows those will get brought in during refresh in service.

[Anonymous]

Audrey, thank you! That makes total sense. So a refresh will update values to existing columns, but will not create new columns as that should change modeling.

[audreygerred]

Exactly - you got it!!!!