Sharepoint and Streaming Dataset

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

I'm looking to achieve a "realtime" or "near-realtime" data updating for paginated reports and dashboards. For my purposes, the best way I can achieve this is through the office 365 and sharepoint integration that PBI has. I'm really wondering if its possible and how. 

For my use-case scenario I'm managing a project which has a central excel file to keep track of a number of different aspects. I have the PBI Service refreshing this 3 times per day, but what I would like is to have it refreshing more frequently without having to click the refresh button. I have considered sharepoint lists opposed to sharepoint saved excel file but between these don't know how to get it into a streaming dataset.

[v-deddai1-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

If your data is not updated frequently, you can use the method GilbertQ  provides.

Would you please  try to use the Power BI Streaming dataset (with Historic data option enable), we can use the Microsoft flow "when an item is created or modify" then "add a row to power bi dataset” ， it is nearly real-time. Then you can connect the streaming dataset in desktop and create complex report. 

And you can also make a program which call the api to get data from sharepoint list and then store it into sql server, then we can connect the sql server by using DirectQuery Mode, it retrive the latest data from sql server when report refresh (not dataset refresh), then the only thing is scheduled the program to call api every serveral minutes, it can achieve  semi-real time experience. Please refer to this documents about the share point list api: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/sp-add-ins/working-with-lists-and-list-items-with-re...

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

Best Regards,

Dedmon Dai

[GilbertQ]

Hi there

With a streaming dataset, this will stream data into Power BI. I could explain it as pushing data into Power BI.

Compared to when you refresh data in Power BI it is pulling from the data source.

IF you are using Power BI Premium (With paginated reports) you could schedule the refresh to happen every 30mins?

Here are more details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/refresh-data#data-refresh