Data source for network drive using on-premises gateway

[AFoulk]

I am currently connected to data sources on our SQL Database and can schedule refreshes fine for a report and dashboard that only use the SQL database, but when I want to schedule a refresh on a report or dashboard also using some excel files on 1 of our Network drives, I'm not sure how to create a data source connection for the network drive. How can I do this? Would it be done through the folder or file options somehow or something else I'm not thinking of?

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

@AFoulk,

How do you connect to these files in Power BI Desktop? If you use Excel connector in Power BI Desktop to connect to  your files, please follow the guide in this similar thread to add all the Excel data sources within gateway.

However, if you use Folder connector in Power BI Desktop to connnect to your files, please add data source within gateway using Folder option.

Regards,
Lydia

[Caddy123]

Hello all, 

I am also struggling with this. Is this a necessary prerequisite: "So far we mounted the network disc on the GateWay machine"?

Would be great to get help on this!

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

@AFoulk,

How do you connect to these files in Power BI Desktop? If you use Excel connector in Power BI Desktop to connect to  your files, please follow the guide in this similar thread to add all the Excel data sources within gateway.

However, if you use Folder connector in Power BI Desktop to connnect to your files, please add data source within gateway using Folder option.

Regards,
Lydia

[AFoulk]

Hello Lydia,

I have been connecting directly to individual Excel files. I believe it will become more simplified to use a single folder so after reading some more into this I decided to move the core files into a new folder because I did not want all of my files on that drive to be loading through that folder option. I first tried connecting to the main network folder but it was loading every single file into a very long list and was certainly unneeded like that.

My current snag seems to be when I try to create the gateway connection for the folder when on the Power BI Service under Manage Gateways. It is not connecting and I had a thought that maybe the gatewat needs created first on our Server Gateway where it is actually installed and cannot be done just on the Service where I try to make the connection.

Does this sound like the correct way to move forward to you?

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@AFoulk，

What is your current error? Are you able to access the folder in the machine that installing gateway? 

Regards,
Lydia

[AFoulk · Accepted solution]

After speaking some more with our IT Manager, the problem was the link address. I was using the drive letter with the path following but it needed to begin with our server name first so it was the full technical path.

The worked for the gateway, then I discovered I had to update all of my individual sources accessing that drive to change to that full path as I had went in through "My Computer" and what I needed to do was actually paste the same path listed in the gateway. Now everything work and presents the ability to schedule refresh.

Super thrilled that is all squared away now!

[RobRayborn]

Once I had the FULL file path, including Server name, and used my Network Login name + Passowrd, this ran smooth!

[bouakazDjallel]

Hello,

We've been searching for an answer for a while now and you seem to be the only one who has managed to configure this correctly.

So far we mounted the network disc on the GateWay machine and associated it with the letter G:\

When creating the gateway, we chose File and the full path : \xxxxxfsdtestfile.csv

We authenticate as the windows user who mounted the drive.

Could you give us more details on how you configured your disk and gateway please?

[FlorianBerz]

Hello, the username and password to access the network drive have to be the same as the windows user you are logged in.

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@AFoulk,

Glad to hear the issue is solved, you can accept appropriate replies as answer to close this thread.

Regards,
Lydia