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Cyrilbrd
Helper IV
Helper IV

Dynamicaly update the tiles in a dashboard?

Is there a way the dynamically update the tiles in 'Dashboards' whenever the source in 'Reports' is updated?

Present solution looks more like a 'copy-paste values', and requires a lot of relabelling (tiltes) and repositioning to get what was previously created.

Any clue?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

After updating to Power BI Pro, the issue completely disappeared. In other words, this was a limitation of the free version of PBI.

I will now consider this solved and advise those that may encounter a similar issue to consider either paying around US$120 yearly (good for one sharer and one collaborator) or use the free version if sharing is not your objective.

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17 REPLIES 17
dgelfuso
Helper I
Helper I

In order to have dashboard update automatically, the entire report must be pinned to the dashboard. If only a portion of a report is pinned to the dashboard, it will be static.

krader20
Regular Visitor

Has anyone had an updates on a fix for this issue? I haven't found any solid answers to this. I feel like there isn't a "link" between the report visualization and the one pinned to the dashboard. My specific issues is changing something on the visualization (not the dataset), saving the report, and refreshing the dashboard tiles, but it doesn't change the current visualization that is already on the dashboard. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Still not fixed for free version of PowerBI... I am right now communicating with a Microsoft Support Professional as app.powerbi.com has become very slow and some tiles in the dashboards are not displayed anymore...

So far my only workaround is to publish from PBD to app.powerbi.com and to pin again modified tiles...

Not efficient and time consuming.

If only dashboards could be created from PBD as PBD is working flawlessly...

After updating to Power BI Pro, the issue completely disappeared. In other words, this was a limitation of the free version of PBI.

I will now consider this solved and advise those that may encounter a similar issue to consider either paying around US$120 yearly (good for one sharer and one collaborator) or use the free version if sharing is not your objective.

Dashboard tiles are intentionally a snapshot at the time of pinning, and not a view defined against the current report definition.

 

Think of a use case where you might want to show on a dashboard the same visualization filtered to a specific subset. E.g. Profit by month as a line chart for three major product categories.

You can do this by creating that chart once in the report, filtering it to Category1, pinning, filtering to Category2, pinning, and filtering to Category3, and finally pinning once more.

 

The dashboard has 3 distinct tiles on it now (you should update their titles). This is much more powerful in terms of personalization (which is one of the primary use cases of the dashboard functionality) than a tile which must always reflect the report as saved. In the second case, we'd have to create  the same visualization 3 times in a report somewhere, and leave them in there.

 

As for having to update the filters for a "Current Month" context, this should be solved at the model layer. Add a field that is recalculated every night in your date dimension, [CurrentMonthFlag], and filter that field to True. Then when the dashboard tiles are refreshed, the filter context remains the same, but the underlying data has changed.

 

Finally, if you need to modify the filter context manually on a tile, you can do so through the ellipsis menu for the tile and blowing it up to full screen, at which point you can work with defined filters on it. No need to delete and re-pin.

What does NOT make sense to me is that when a dashboard is published in a content pack, and you install the content pack in a group workspace, unless you are the admin of that group, there is no refresh option in the tile (...) menu. And this is with a 'members can edit Power BI content' option.

 

So, the dashboard data in a report with a live connection to a datasource does not actually refresh.

 

But, the dashboard itself WILL refresh if you add a tile or widget. Does this mean that Dashboard composition can automatically update, but existing tiles within the dashboard are static? This is my finding with an updated content pack and a group workspace.

 

The logical use case to me is that a member of an 'editable' group workspace would be able to 'refresh' the dashboard. And that subsequently all the data in 'directquery' reports/tiles will refresh and be up to date with the data source.

 

Having the dashboards be the kind of static abstraction that you identify in your first sentence does NOT meet all the possible use cases. Especially when we are working around other Power BI constraints to publish content effectively and securely.

OOPS! I take it back. I just tried one more thing in a content pack. I added the dataset that was MISSING from the content pack. I guess you cannot trust the auto select of reports and datasets when you select a dashboard for your content pack. How weird. Once I add that to the content pack and republish it, the group dashboard is instantly refreshed and the (...) menu now contains the "Refresh sashboard tiles" command. And it works!

 

And thank you very much for that clarification. I was not even dealing with filters yet.

That's a very interesting finding. Can you submit a bug report with reproduction steps to publish a content pack that's missing a dataset for an included dashboard? This should definitely not be possible.

 

You can do so by opening a ticket here for bugs in the PBI Service.

I was unclear in my opening statement. The snapshot is not of the data displayed, but of the filter context at time of pinning. A dashboard tile's content should not be static. Its filter selections are static. Thus, if I have a [CurrentMonth] field in my model (set with Power Query's Date.IsInCurrentMonth() function) and I filter that field to [CurrentMonth] = True, then my dashboard tile should always display the value for the current month (assuming the data model is refreshed at least once daily to update the date dimension fields appropriately).

If I pin a tile after having selected a single [ProductCategory] in my report (and no other filters), then that tile should always show the total for that [ProductCategory].

I hope this clarifies my statement and I apologize for my confusing verbiage previously.

 

As to the group workspace items you mentioned, I cannot comment authoritatively on that issue. Is there any reason why you can't make your editing members Admins in the group?

ashishrj
Power Participant
Power Participant

@Cyrilbrd You can dynamically refresh your dataset using REST API. Find the link given below for the webinar which we had conducted where we showcased how CRM Online can be connected to Power BI and refreshed in real-time.

Note: REST API session starts after 30 minutes 

Link: Power BI REST API using CRM Online as a Dataset

rhouse
Helper I
Helper I

I am also wondering about this. It seems useless if when you update a report, the dashboard does not update as well. 

When the data source refreshes, actually it should update also the dashboard..Sometimes needs a browser refresh due to cached data..If the tiles are not refreshing , there is a problem..Please provide some more details..

Also didn't understand about renaming titles etc..Guessing 1) if the dashboard is shared with you, any changes you made it will revert to the original version of the owner dashboard if refreshed..2) if you upload a pbix or excel file from onedrive and you change the reports it will also revert to the previous state every hour to reflect the stored file..

 

Not sure what applies to you..hope it helps

Konstantinos Ioannou

@konstantinos thanks for the feedback.

Indeed the dashboards do not refresh with Chrome (is it browser related?), as for refreshing (not reloading right?) it sadly does not do the trick. Hence a modified tile within report previously pinned to dashboard does not dynamically update after refreshing the browser, even with disabled cache from devtool. Could MAC be the culprit here?

Since the tiles do not refresh, one has to resort to re-pin the visualizations and rename them (tedious work).

I am the author (owner) of said dashboards, I am merely testing the system before deployment.

Cyrilbrd,

I understand AND AGREE ... once I build a report and pin it to a dashoard I would think the Report module would remain dynamic. However, if I edit that report - even by clicking from the dashboard - the report editing process actually makes a new report form while leaving the old format on the Dashboard. Intuitively, I would think that editing the report would update the "link" to that report state in the dashboard - replacing that version of the report in the dashboard. But, that is not the case.

djnww
Impactful Individual
Impactful Individual

Agree. This is a limitation that needs to be addressed. There has to be an easier way to refresh a pinned dashboard that has had a filter applied (ie. Latest Month). Currently we have to delete, apply new filter, repin, and reorganise the dashboards.

 

The report owner should be able to repin and replace an existing component with whatever filter they have applied on the screen. Alternatively, each component in the dashboard could have its own filter as well.

@Cyrilbrd Not related to browser..What do you mean modified tile?..Edit report and change or filter the graph and then pin it?..Even if you save the report when the PowerBI fetch the data from OneDrive it will revert back to the old graph so the modified one won't be connected..( if I understand correct )

You can go to dataset and create new report with your modified tiles you need to pin..Logically this will be refreshed when the dataset ( manually refresh the pbix file in onedrive since you have on prem data sources & free account ) ..Of course you end up with two report pointing from one dataset..

 

Konstantinos Ioannou

@ashishrj Thanks I will have a look.

@konstantinos Thanks, I found out that it just requires patience. The dashboards would update given sufficient time.

Still unsure about the trigger, as refreshing and clearing cache have no effect whatsoever.

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