Updates to the Web connector

[dimazaid]

We are currently working on improving the refresh of cloud based data sources. As part of this, one of the changes we have made recently is that new datasets that leverage import from Web pages will not be automatically configured for refresh in Power BI service, and will require the use of a gateway. Please consider using the Personal Gateway or On-Premises data gateway if you would like to use this capability. We are working on removing this restriction in the future.

Thanks,

The Power BI team

[A1m]

This has caused a lot of trouble and confusion for me 😞 Seems quite basic. Is there any workaround for this?

[Anonymous]

Any updates?

[mahimabedi]

@dimazaid Thansk Dima, its working now. But unable to schedule refersh for the report. it is saying it is "connecting directly" and and is asking for "windows" credentials. But since it is SP onprem, shouldnt it use a gateway?

How do i set up refersh using a gateway?

[matmoore]

Has anyone figured out how to use the on-premises gateway instead of the personal gateway to schedule synchronisation of web data sources?

I'm fed up with my scheduled sync failing due to my personal gateway (running on my laptop) being unavailable (i.e. my computer being turned off) just to pull data from a website into PBI online...

[jeppesal]

Hi Matmoore,

I had the same problem and the response from Microsoft was to vote for that feature (see http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Integrations-with-Files-and/On-premises-data-gateway-OData-OAuth2/m-...).

In short, the Gateway takes over all sources on-prem AND online BUT at the movement this is not supported, so you must add the Personal Gateway to enable the combination of on-prem and online sources.

Response from Microsoft

"In addition, I mean that your issue is caused by that on-premises gateway doesn't allow to combine on-premises data source and online data source in a single dataset."

This is such a crazy architecture and doesn't make any sense;

1. First, why does the Gateway take over all sources and not just the on-prem sources?
2. Why can I add online sources to the Data Gateway (manage gateways) if this feature is not supported?
3. And even if the Data Gateway did support online sources, why are the connectors and authentication options limited compared to Power BI Desktop?

I hope Microsoft will rethink the backend architecture - at the movement it is too unstable and too confusing 😞

[adamwaisu]

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[mauropasi]

I keep reading about this possibility to use the personal gateway to connect to web sources but all I get in my schedule report section is: 



Where am I supposed to choose that option?

Perhaps there are multiple issues with the Web connector and the support team is getting them mixed up.

[dimazaid]

@mauropasi what data source are you trying to connect to?

[MWilliams86]

So I've come upon this issue as well. Any Web content source I've created to get around the fact that Power BI can't read Sharepoint libraries as Lists are now not accepting my credentials when updating my data. I didn't see a workaround listed here, but do you know of any @dimazaid ?

[dimazaid]

We had an issue with SharePoint libraries when using oAuth, but that was resolved a while back. Are you still seeing it?

[mauropasi]

It's an API call.

I am using Web.Contents with some authentication in the headers so it is set as anonymous because I didn't find a way to pass a bearer token otherwise.  

[PBI_KLo]

After changing to web credentials and it's saying that my dashboards need a PowerBI Pro account, even though I created them with a free account. It also said that the (web) refresh failed because "The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine." Wouldn't the 'local machine' in this case be the web service? In any case I cannot fuss around with web access any more and rather do a manual refresh that works reliably.

[dimazaid]

Hi @PBI_KLo,
Is it a new report you just published? The gateway requirement is only for new reports.

[PBI_KLo]

Not sure how you are defining old and new, but I'm guessing new as it's a new location from the last? In any case I have lost track, and as mentioned I will keep using what I know works, because Murphy's law I won't be able to troubleshoot it in time before a meeting or something. 

[dimazaid]

Hi @PBI_KLo,
New == was published since the last Power BI Desktop release end of November (11/28). (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-november-feature-summary/) 
Old == was published before that. 

[PBI_KLo]

Okay, they would be all new then, since I refresh/publish some every day, some every week, and some every month. But I generally update PBI Desktop when I see the notification pop-up, and all the new features have been relevant and useful to me. 

[matmoore]

This is terrible news! I've developed Power BI reports that are customer facing, which use data from a web page source. Suddenly without notice, Microsoft pull this feature. This is the exact reason I am finding it difficult to gain support within our business for Microsoft's online services.

Regardless, I trust you are working to provide an alternative solution that will allow for reports to schedule data refreshes from Web Page sources without having to use a gateway running on a local computer.

[dimazaid]

Hello @matmoore, and @TBenders,

I'm sorry you're having difficulties. As I mentioned we're working on improving this in the future. But meanwhile, are you able to use the Power BI gateway to keep your new reports working? To be clear, this is impacting only new reports, if you have an existing report running, it will not have any impact on it. 

Regarding gaining support from your company, were you seeing any other issues in Power BI that we can help with? If so, please send me an email to dimazaid.at.microsoft.com and I'll be more than happy to go thru them.

Thanks!
Dimah 

[matmoore]

@dimazaid,

This is a report that was published, then updated recently using the latest version of Power BI desktop and republished.

I'm all for future improvements, but breaking key features (and scheduled sync of online web page data sources is a huge one) before having the improvement ready is extremely poor form for a product targeted at business intelligence. Our business pays Microsoft for a cloud service, which means we expect not to have to run an application on a local server to feed data from a webpage to Power BI online which defeats the purpose of our subscription.

The technical support provided by Microsoft to date has been to use a Personal Gateway (not acceptable as I'd need a computer running when the refresh is scheduled) or alternatively use the workaround in this post by using Google Sheets (even worse, a competitors product)!

Will scheduled refresh of web.page data sources be supported by the "improvement" the Power BI team is working on?

[dimazaid]

@matmoore,
Thank you for the feedback, and yes hopefully we'll get a fix soon as part of the improvments.

[Anonymous]

One quick question, I'm trying to use http://www.timeapi.org/pst to build what is described in http://www.excelguru.ca/blog/2016/06/08/display-last-refreshed-date-in-power-bi/ .

It uses anonymous connect to web source. Can you teach me how to use data on that page without getting error messages?