Enterprise Gateway Refresh Not As Expected

[cjmthompson]

Not sure if this is the correct place, so please move if required.

We have an enterprise gateway set up to an analysis services data source, which is avail to users on the service site, lets call this "Gateway-DS", and when a report is published from the desktop app to the same service a message along the lines of "Enterprise Gateway Data Source will be used instead" appears... however it seems to create a brand new datasource (still through the Enterprise Gateway), but specific to that report.. lets call that "Report-DS".

At this point, we wondered if we had done something wrong, but didn't think much of it.. would look again another day.

Then however, we needed to modify the AS object on the server (simple change, renaming of a measure).. once this was completed, deployed, and re-processed we waited for the data sources to refresh [knowing that our reports would break and we'd have to fix them]..

However, the "Gateway-DS" refreshed completely as expected, but the "Report-DS" just showed and error.. we waited, and waited but it just never refreshed. In the end we had to revert the change to the cube (again just a simple measure re-name) and all was well.

So, questions from me include:

1. How do we deploy a report from the desktop app, and make it use the "correct" gateway DS?
2. How do i cahnge the data source target (i.e. new measure name) if required?
3. When will we be able to manually change a reports data source going forward?
4. Can anyone at MS / PowerBI support repoint our report to our "working" datasource in the backend perhaps?

Thanks,

Chris.

[dimazaid]

Hi Chris,

Do you see "Report-DS" under your Gateway?

In your scenario for "Gateway-DS", in order to add data sources to it you need to go to Manage Gateways->Click on your gateway and add a new data source. Data sources won't show up automatically in the Enterprise Gateway case under the gateway, make sure you're adding the right data source there. 

• How do we deploy a report from the desktop app, and make it use the "correct" gateway DS? 
  • If you go to Manage Gateways and add the Resource there, and you only have it under one gateway we make the decision to use that gateway for that report. But if you have more than one Gateways we give you the option to choose.
• How do i cahnge the data source target (i.e. new measure name) if required?
  • You mean on the Gateway side? could you elaborate more?
• When will we be able to manually change a reports data source going forward?
  • This is not availble yet but on the roadmap, not dates.
• Can anyone at MS / PowerBI support repoint our report to our "working" datasource in the backend perhaps?
  • Have you tried connecting thru "Get Data" ? 

[cjmthompson]

Hi,

No, we do not see "Report-DS" under the Gateway... I thought we had, but i re-checked, and it's not there. The only DS that is listed under the Gateway (on the Power BI portal) is the specific one that we added, prior to publishing any reports to the portal, i.e. the one named "Gateway-DS".

I don't follow this "In your scenario for "Gateway-DS", in order to add data sources to it you need to go to Manage Gateways->Click on your gateway and add a new data source. Data sources won't show up automatically in the Enterprise Gateway case under the gateway, make sure you're adding the right data source there."

To clarify, we have performed the following steps:

1. Install Enterprise Gateway on the target server, and connect to the data source via the PowerBI portal - Gateway is named "Gateway", and the data source is named "Gateway-DS"
2. Develop a report in PowerBI Desktop (this uses a connection to "ServerName", using "Localhost" seems not to work)
3. Publish the report to PowerBI Portal - this creates a new Dataset of the same name as the report i.e. "Report-DS"
4. Recieve a message saying "Report has been configured to use Enterprise Gateway" @ Deployment.
5. New Dataset is created with the same name as the newly deployed report... there is no additional entry under Enterprise Gateway
6. Attempted to add a new entry are met with "Duplicate DataSource"

I mean, it *seems* to be using the gateway.. but if we change the underlying data source it just breaks... but a data source added via "Get Data" refreshes as expected.

• How do we deploy a report from the desktop app, and make it use the "correct" gateway DS? 
  • If you go to Manage Gateways and add the Resource there, and you only have it under one gateway we make the decision to use that gateway for that report. But if you have more than one Gateways we give you the option to choose.
    • This seems to be broken then, it doesn't refresh if the underlying source is changed, or i do not understand correctly?
• How do i cahnge the data source target (i.e. new measure name) if required?
  • You mean on the Gateway side? could you elaborate more?
    • Sorry, poorly worded on my part.. if i need to alter the target of a data source what is the "correct" procedure.. should we completely re-deploy the reports and dashboards?
• When will we be able to manually change a reports data source going forward?
  • This is not availble yet but on the roadmap, not dates.
    • Ok
• Can anyone at MS / PowerBI support repoint our report to our "working" datasource in the backend perhaps?
  • Have you tried connecting thru "Get Data" ? 
    • Yes, get "Get Data" works fine, but this isn't the issue here... the issue is relating to publishing a report to the portal and it not using the already in place gateway datasource, even though it clearly says that it is going to... the report works, but any changes to the underlying data structure just break the data source. it never, ever refreshes....

[cjmthompson · Accepted solution]

Hi,

So to update on this, just in case other people are experiencing the same issue (or have in the past), i completely dropped and redeployed my cube model over this past weekend, with the same name... and then processed it as per normal.

Just before i re-deployed the report that was broken last time to the PowerBI portal, i thought i'll just check and see if it's refreshed the gateway [the model had been processing for about a day at this point, various partitions] and low and behold my old report had actually got the refresehd model!!

I do not understand why this suddenly works, and before it didnt... maybe it didn't like me "fiddling" with the previous deployed with AMO code.. maybe i did something wrong? Perhaps it's just now all been fixed by the PowerBI pixies?

Who knows, I am happy(er) now though, roll on the ability to change data sources in the portal!!