Scheduled refresh not occurring when my laptop is turned off

[allora]

I have a large dashboard that I have published to my company's power bi workspace. This dataset has data coming from SQL Server, excel documents, and smartsheets. When I try to implement a scheduled refresh on this dashboard and then shut off my computer, I can an error saying that the gateway is offline or couldn't be reached. When I check to see what gateway is being used, it says that I am using my personal gateway. Is this an issue?

I have another colleague who has a power bi dashboard with only SQL Server datasets that are being called and that dashboard seems to be updating perfectly well even when their computer is shut down. When I check to see what gateway he is using, it says something along the lines of "this dataset does not require a gateway as all the data is stored in the cloud". Why is this difference occuring?

Is there an issue with using Smartsheets or Excel documents that seems to be stopping my scheduled refresh? Do I really need 

[v-binbinyu-msft]

Hi @allora ,

The on-premises data gateway acts as a bridge. It provides quick and secure data transfer between on-premises data, which is data that isn't in the cloud, and several Microsoft cloud services. These services include Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure Logic Apps.

By using a gateway, organizations can keep databases and other data sources on their on-premises networks while securely using that on-premises data in cloud services.

Now, have two type gateway: Personal Gateway and Standard Gateway

Personal Gateway is only avaliable for Import connection mode.  

Don't install a gateway on a computer, like a laptop, that might be turned off, asleep, or disconnected from the internet. The gateway can't run under any of those circumstances.

If your data comes from a cloud-based data source and the power bi service can access it properly, you do not need a gateway at this point.

For more details, you can read related document: Install an on-premises data gateway | Microsoft Learn , What is an on-premises data gateway? | Microsoft Learn,On-premises data gateway FAQ | Microsoft Learn

Best regards,
Community Support Team_Binbin Yu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

@allora So, if you are using a Personal Gateway installed on your laptop then the scheduled refresh won't run because the gateway isn't running when the laptop is turned off. You need a gateway if the data is stored "on-premises". Generally this means like on your laptop or on a network drive but can also mean data sitting in something like Azure or AWS if installed as Infrastructure as a Service. Cloud-based content like Smartsheets and other things like Azure CosmosDB, etc. generally do not require a gateway because the Service can communicate with these services directly without an intermediary.