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cuongle
Advocate II
Advocate II

Power BI embedded supports data refresh

Does anyone know how Power BI Embedded supports data refresh or schedule for data refresh on "Data Import" mode? I am not using direct query.

 

The main reason is we are using Power BI service with data refresh scheduling, now power BI embedded comes out with lots of pros: simplify authentication, no Office 365, no Azure AD Sync, connection string can be changed programmatically, cost saving. So we really want to try this.

 

Plus, is there any limitation on the file size when importing like Power BI Service, 250M per file?

 

 

28 REPLIES 28
CalebBlanton
Advocate II
Advocate II

This is a huge need for our clients as well.  I saw this limitation in the PBI Preview but assumed something as fundamental as data refresh would be supported after the Preview.  Guess it's true what they say about assumptions.

 

Ideally we would have the ability to manage Power BI Embedded workspaces in the PBI Web App with the same ability to pull in PBIX files, set data refresh schedules on imported datasets, etc.  Sure, we can use an API to do some of the same things but why not just re-use that interface for PBI Embedded Collection Workspace Management??

 

Our reports refresh nightly for our clients - they need to see data change every day and there are lots of clients.  It is not practical for us to relegate this to a manual process.

 

The catch 22 here is that even if I wanted to re-write all of the scheduled data refresh logic myself (which I do not), I have no way to automate this right now because I can't programatically generate a PBIX file from a refreshed dashboard.   I can do everything needed after that: Use the API to import the file, use the API to set the connection credentials, get the embed URL, etc.  But I cannot get my automated hands on a refreshed PBIX!

I dug pretty deep this weekend into using Direct Query.  We use the hell out of calculated columns, measures and other things that simply go away with Direct Query.  Would involve a large amount of development spend to make our data warehouse look like how PBI has helped us evolve our visualizations and it becomes a big maintenance point.  Our business stakeholders are evolving how we look at the data in a very seamless way right now - this cannot go away and therefore, I feel DirectQuery is simply not an option for us.

Sure would love to hear from MS/a moderator on this particular subject.  This is huge for us...don't make me hunt you guys down at the upcoming Data Insights Summit.  To be truthful, I probably will anyways.  😉

 
UPDATE: Found this on the PBI Ideas list.  There are rumors in the comments that this will be released in Q2 2017.  It was needed Q4 2016 but beggars can't be choosers.

Related idea: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/13892673-allow-in-place-data-mode...

I was waiting for the release of this feature and DirectQuery option was slow. Finally, created an automation solution(C#) that opens the pbix file, click the refresh button. Once refresh is completed, it saves it and close Power BI desktop. Import the pbix to PowerBI embedded. 

Anybody who knows if there is any update to this?

 

I need to pull data from API in the pbix file and need to show data as real-time as possible. This allows for 48 times refresh in a day (every 30 mins) even with Power BI Premium license.

 

If I go with Power BI embedded approach can I bring it down to 5 mins by any chance? Appreciate any pointers.

 

 

Yes. This was implemented. See here, here and here.

But aren't programmatic refreshes triggered through the API constrained by the workspace capacity anyway (i.e. up to 8x or 48x per day)? It sounds like they are in the documentation:

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-data-refresh-apis-in-the-power-bi-service/

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2. Learning how to fish > being spoon-fed without active thinking.
3. Please accept as a solution posts that resolve your questions.
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Anonymous
Not applicable

That's right @otravers.

Refreshes are constrained to 8 or 48 times per day based on the acquired capacity. If you exceed this limit, you get an exception "Number of refresh requests in last 24 hours exceeded limit". 

 

To add some more on this topic every refresh consumes part of the acquired capacity. So, you may face situations that a refresh (even for a small dataset) takes a long time waiting for some capacity to be assigned to it.

 

A feature that allow incremental refreshes  has already started and it would be nice addition to the refresh toolkit.

 

Hope this add to the conversation.

 

Regards,

 

Thanos

@Anonymous Incremental Refresh is live as of today's Power BI Desktop update, but that's limited to PBI Premium:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-premium-incremental-refresh

 

I haven't heard of that functionality being planned for Embedded (which doesn't mean it's not, just that I haven't seen that explicitly mentioned, while it's been known for a couple of months that PBI Premium was about to get incremental refreshes).

------------------------------------------------
1. How to get your question answered quickly - good questions get good answers!
2. Learning how to fish > being spoon-fed without active thinking.
3. Please accept as a solution posts that resolve your questions.
------------------------------------------------
BI Blog: Datamarts | RLS/OLS | Dev Tools | Languages | Aggregations | XMLA/APIs | Field Parameters | Custom Visuals
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @otravers,

 

just to let you know that the incremental refresh will work with either dedicated capacity - whether that is from Office (Premium) or Azure (Power BI Embedded). 

This is the answer I've got from GuyInACube in my question in this video.

 

Hope it helps.

 

Regards,

 

Thanos

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @otravers,

 

some info from the internal teams was talking for being available for PBI Embedded (during summer). But maybe I haven't understand correctly.

 

I asked for some clarification. When I have something more on this, I'll get back to you.

 

Of course, you can still use this feature to embed reports with PBI Premium but you have to pay more (a lot more) 🙂

 

Regards,

 

Thanos

JorgeDiego
Advocate I
Advocate I

Hi,

 

Is there any new on this discussion?

I´m using Power BI embedded with direct query reports, but they are very slow because of many complex queries. I have tried to use import data and they are working better but I need to be able to refresh the data. 

Does any one know how to do that?

 

Many thanks in advance.

I have the same problem. I am using import query and cannot ask the customers to regenerate the report daily and upload. Is there a way either to automate that process or refresh the data? Tx.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Same issue here with my customers.

I have been told that Live Connection on SSAS through the gateway will be supported soon ... this could be a solution.

vijayashanti
Employee
Employee

We had embedded power bi report into our web application & successfully applied row level security. now we are facing problem with data refresh, Power bi report which is been used for this is built with import query as direct query is not feasible for our application. Major Ask, How to refresh power bi report available in embedded workspace ? Do we have any utility built perform it

 

Have you had any luck with this? I have the same problem. When I go to PowerBI report or Dataset it's updated but not on my embedded SharePoint Page

With direct query we can achive data refresh in embedded, but with import query still we are looking.

ETA?

ETA to support it?

guilherme
New Member

I'm using DirectSQL and takes 1 hour to update the dashboard on embedded version. I believe it is a Microsoft purposeful limitation.

guilherme
New Member

I'm using DirectSQL and takes 1 hour to update the dashboard on embedded version. I believe it is a Microsoft purposeful limitation.

jcapezzuto
Resolver I
Resolver I

It appears that you have to refresh the PBIX file manually and re-import each time you have updated data.  Hopefully this is just a limitation of the preview version.  It's disappointing that they went this direction, rather than allowing you to reference reports and data sets that have previously been published to the powerbi.com site. They already have the support there for scheduled refreshes, gateways etc.  Hopefully this is offerred as a solution going forward.

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