Budilding an inventory tool in Power BI/Excel which allows inputs from end user

[zenisekd]

Hi everyone, 

This case and the reasons behind it, in reality, are slightly more complex, than I describe here, but let's focus on the basic description: Our customer asked me to build a tool, which could be used by a couple of guys in the warehouse. Basically what they need is to see the list of order lines pulled from the database and be able to give a different status to every line manually in the final tool (excel or Power BI).

The data pulled from the database would be refreshed once a day, while the status manually inserted would be refreshed immediately (I guess through direct query).  The trouble for me is that I am not sure, what would be the best practice to do in order to keep the manual inputs after the refresh of the table.

Now I am thinking, about what would be the best tool and how to use it. An example is that there would be an excel in onedrive or Power BI report available to those guys, they would simply open it, and set a few statuses manually which would give them some statistics or predictions. The next day the list would be refreshed and new orders would be added to the list, some old orders would be perhaps adjusted in the database, but the statuses manually set would stay the same. 

Thanks for your replies, I know this is not purely Power BI question, but hopefully, it doesn't matter too much. 

David

[selimovd]

Hey @zenisekd ,

when you want immediate refresh, I think the only option is to include that table in direct query mode.

For that reason the table where you write in, has to support direct query. You could use a SQL Server or dataverse table. See the complete list here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/power-bi-data-sources

With Excel there is no immediate refresh. Why don't you go for a PowerApp that you include into the Power BI Report to write into an SQL Server. Like this the content is visible immediately in the report and you can write directly to your data source. Also you don't have to change tools, you can say in Power BI.

If you need any help please let me know.
If I answered your question I would be happy if you could mark my post as a solution ✔️ and give it a thumbs up 👍

Best regards
Denis

Blog: WhatTheFact.bi
Follow me: twitter.com/DenSelimovic

[zenisekd]

@selimovd 
I like the idea of PowerApp, but I am not sure, how complicated would it be build something like that, to maintain it in case of additional requests and finally what components would I have to add and what would it cost? 
At the moment I am pulling data from ODBC SAP database. It needs to be as simple as possible. Also, both tools need to be in one place. Basically ideal would be a table where they can fill their input into column right next to the values from the database.