Questions about automation process

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone.

I know that this will be a very complex question, but I am not looking for a straight solution, just a recommendation about where to find the information I need.

I am working as a junior business analyst in a company.

We are trying to analize the data that comes out of an industrial printer.

The data can be accessed through a local address and it is stored as a txt file, one per each day.

Here lies my first question: Is it possible to set up an automatic procedure in which every day the new file is imported into my PowerBI model? At the moment I think this is not possible without human intervention, but every bit of knowledge is appreciated.

After analyzing this data (this part is clear for me) I would like to have an automatic way to publish the updated report to my online power BI page.

This, again, is something I have no idea where to start with.

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@Anonymous,

Is it possible to put all the txt files into a folder? If you can put all the new files in a folder, then you can use Folder connector in Power BI Desktop, expand all the data in a single query, create report in Power BI Desktop and publish the report to Power BI Service.

In Power BI Service, you can add the folder data source within gateway and set schedule refresh for the dataset. This way, once new file is added to the folder, new data will automatically get updated to Power BI Service report based on refresh schedule.

Regards,
Lydia

[Anonymous]

Hi,

How can I setup the gateway?

Is there any guide about the topic?

Is it important for the gateway to be an on-premise,always active machine?

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous,

You can follow the guide in this article to set up gateway. Please note that you shouldn't install a gateway on a computer, such a laptop, that may be turned off, asleep, or not connected to the Internet because the gateway can't run under any of those circumstances.

In addition, you can add the folder within gateway following the instructions in this blog:https://blog.crossjoin.co.uk/2017/07/14/configuring-power-bi-gateway-data-sources-for-files-and-folders/.

Regards,
Lydia