is gateway needed for IMPORT?

[ovonel]

I understand the GATEWAY connects the cloud(app.powerbi.com) to whatever on-prem I have.

But, if I create a report where I do not use ‘direct query’ I just want to IMPORT all the data… Do I need a gateway in that case?

[collinq]

Hey @ovonel ,

Your first statement is the one that matters - Gateway connects the Service to on premise data.  That is the criteria.  It doesn't matter the data source or type or method of getting the data.  If you ever want to refresh the data, then, even if it is imported, you will need the Gateway to get to the internal data.