Forum Discussion
onedrive refreshWITHOUT gateway
jmdhThis page walks through the overall refresh areas and whether or not a gateway is required. The gateway is the link between data sources on premises to the cloud. If the source is already in the cloud, like your scenario you may not need the gateway. There are certain cases in which you would need the gateway when using an "online" source - for instance they just changed that requirement with connecting to web url's. It's challenge to understand every single scenario, but you can set it up in such a way that it will automatically refresh without the gateway.
Thank you. Yes i read it at least ten times (and the aother realted pages) and i have never been able to make refresh work (without a gateway) .
I am unclear wether my Excel files have to be in Table form so i also tried that because it automatically uses the data model i think, but it just doe not work. And so far, all my data is in EXcel, so i really don't want to go the Gateway way if not absolutely necessary.
By the way i think the sheer lenght of the documentation of Refresh etc hints at an unusual complexity for such a product:
I am working on a summary table for beginners
I think refresh is complex because data storage is complex. Power BI does a good job of pulling data from a wide range of locations, so it's not suprising to me that refreshing that data from all those (mixed) locations can be a bit tricky.
I have a simple rule of thumb for refeshing. Cloud based data (Like Azure Databases, Salesforce.com. Google Analytics etc.) refresh automatically. OneDrive and SharePoint Online are cloud based data repositories, so if I put my .PBIX or .XLSX files there they will get refreshed hourly. On premise data (Access Databases, in-house hosted SQL databases, in-house hosted Salesforce.com, or even just the files on my laptop) need a Gateway to refresh, and if it needs a Gateway, you need a Pro Licence. If I mix any of these, (Like Google Analytics and a CSV file on my C: drive) in a data model, I'll need a Gateway for Power BI to gain access to my CSV file.
Hope this helps.
Stuart
Burningsuit Your rule of thumb info is helpful. I am wondering about Cloud Based Data: if you do your modeling in Desktop - and so have imported data sets into desktop to work with and make your reports......
and then move it up to PBI Service for Dashboards
does one reset those data connections to be direct between PBI Service and Cloud Based Data - - - or must the linking always be a 2-step process of Cloud connected to Desktop and then moved up to BI Service? - - - or does one need to avoid using Desktop altogether??
