Alert when data changes

[Pauliusputv]

Hello,

I was given a task to make Power BI send an email (alert) when something changes in the data. 

For example, I have a SharePoint folder with 3 excel files. In one of them there was a change (there was added new row or deleted row or edited row). Is it possible for Power BI send an email when it refreshes dataset and such things happen?

Thanks for the help!

[collinq]

Hi @Pauliusputv ,

You can do this - if you know the date/time of field changes.  Most fields in SharePoint can have a "modified date" field.  So, you would have to have that field in your dataset and then you could add a formula with something like "if modified in the last x hours, then flag it" and use that flag as your inidicator for an alert to send whenever it inidicates a positive.  Or, you could use incremental refresh and anything that is refreshed gets flagged and that becomes your indicator.  Both of these solutions would require some setup and could easily miss things if you are trying to find "every single possible change on every single possible field".  The hardest part here is for deleted rows - if it is deleted, by definition, it is not in the report anymore - and therefore can't be used as an indicator.  (unless you are using flags for deletion, etc)

That said, if you are actually looking for "something changed in a field somewhere in SharePoint and I want to be alerted" then Power BI is not really what you are looking for in my mind.  You are probably looking for a Power APP or set up a Power Automate inside of SharePoint that alerts on changes when they happen.  If you are trying to determine what is changed when in SharePoint then versioning is already built in and that might be more beneficial.

Now, if you ARE strictly using versioning and every single change requires a new document version in SharePoint then you can report on each file and use the datestamp of the file change to know when things have changed.

I would appreciate Kudos if my response was helpful. I would also appreciate it if you would Mark this As a Solution if it solved the problem. Thanks!

[Pauliusputv]

Thank you for your informative response, @collinq .

One more question. Lets say my task gets simplier and I need to get an alert only when new record is written into the excel. Is it possible to do that? SharePoint alerts me when any kind of modification gets done but I only need to know when new record is added.

[collinq · Accepted solution]

Hi @Pauliusputv ,

I would appreciate Kudos if my response was helpful. I would also appreciate it if you would Mark this As a Solution if it solved the problem. Thanks!

I have done that in Power BI before - when a new record is added to get an alert.  To do that, just add the "created date" field to each row (not the file itself since that never changes) coming from the Excel file and then in the Power BI data you can use an alert based on a column for created date being within 1 day (or 3 if you have weekend delays).   You can make that a macro or something in Excel to make sure that the Created Date is always added when a row is added.

[Pauliusputv]

May I ask you one last question in this thread, @collinq ?

I am sitting for a few hours and can not find where to set alerts for the created date column. Could you tell me how to do it?

[collinq]

HI @Pauliusputv ,

You can do this a number of ways.  One way might be to create a column that is just a "1" or "0" if the date criteria matches (the created date is greater than yesterday sort of thing).  And, then, just make that a card and it can alert if you have a "1" or "0".  Or, you could try to use a filter where date is greater than ....  and then use that as the alert.

I would appreciate Kudos if my response was helpful. I would also appreciate it if you would Mark this As a Solution if it solved the problem. Thanks!

[Pauliusputv]

Thanks a lot @collinq !