Visualizing Real Time Data

[Anonymous]

I am currently in the process of writing a report where we plan to utilize real time data that is crowd sourced. We would ultimately like to have a space somewhere inside the powerbi report to enter in this data AND visualize it. I have been exploring options within powerapps but we are ultimately going to be handing off our report therefore want to try to keep the process as simple and as automated possible. The client will not have access to powerapps (and flow) therefore if this process was created using them our company would be required to set them up (not desirable). 

I was originally thinking about creating a survey monkey on a seperate page that exports to a excel file that powerbi references could be an option but this scenario would require continous refreshes on the desktop. Next I was thinking using google forms but this scenario would require a similar manual refresh and most likely manual download as well. 

Has anyone had any experience with visualizing this type of data using a powerBI report? If so any comments or advice that you may have would be incredibly helpful. 

Thanks, 

Austin I 

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

Do you want to keep the data updated that being loaded into Power BI desktop? I'm afraid it is not possible. In Power BI desktop, real time data or scheduled refresh is not supported, no matter which method you used to load dataset, you have to refresh the data manually to make the displayed data synchronize with the changes in data source.

Best regards,

Yuliana Gu

[Anonymous]

Yes and the same is true for a published report? I understand that a scheduled refresh can be scheduled for the published report since the visualizations of that report can be changed on the powerBI website but new data cannot added to that same report automatically?

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

For real time dataset, you can refer to Real-time streaming in Power BI.

since the visualizations of that report can be changed on the powerBI website but new data cannot added to that same report automatically?

I am not very clear about what you mean. Setting a scheduled refresh makes the dataset to update automatically and the new data would be shown in report while the visualizations would not changed only if you change it by editing reports.

Regards,

Yuliana Gu

[Anonymous]

Sorry my wording was confusing. Hopefully this may help....

If my understanding is correct after a report is published the only way to update that data in the report is to update the desktop powerbi file, re-publish manually to powerbi online, then I can either schedule a refresh or manually refresh the dataset for the report.

My inquiry was to see if there was a more "automatic" way this could be done without having to manually republish to powerbi online from the desktop. 

Thanks, 

Austin I