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sebbyp
Helper III
Helper III

Should I install a personal gateway on my laptop so i can refresh data while travelling?

I have setup my Power BI service from my desktop machine at home (i am a startup company and its just me) but now i am travelling with my laptop and learnt i can't refresh my data from the online service.  Do i need to install a personal gateway on my laptop to allow me to carry on working whilst away from my home desktop?

6 REPLIES 6
ankitpatira
Community Champion
Community Champion

@sebbyp If you've setup personal gateway on machine at home and that machine is ON all the time then you should be able to refresh dataset in power bi service anytime you want. Basically to refresh dataset in power bi service you have to install and configure gateway (personal or data) on machine that is always connected to internet and ON. And so you don't have to install gateway on your laptop if you're only going to access reports in powerbi.com from your laptop because schedule refresh in power bi service should be able to refresh with data that is on your machine at home through personal gateway.

thank you for your detailed answer.  If the desktop machine is not always on is it possible to install a second personal gateway on my laptop so that i can continue working as normal but whilst on the move?

Hi sebbyp,

 

As shared by ankitpatira, a personal gateway acted as a bridge between the data source and Power BI service, and it needs to be installed at the data source side.

If your data source is stored in both Desktop and laptop, then it should be available to add both as the data Source under Gateway settings, after that, you should be able to refresh data while on the move. If the data source is only under the desktop, then refresh with laptop on the move is not possible if desktop is offline.

For detailed information, please check:

Power BI Gateway - Personal

If any further misunderstandings, please post back.

Regards

 

thank you for the comments.  The data source is on my onedrive so not specifically on my desktop or laptop.  I would have expected to continue while on the move if i am using files on my onedrive account.  I dont see why then it makes a difference which machine is used for data source in this respect?

 

I dont really want to leave my desktop machine on all the time as this is at home and at risk of being used by other family members which i dont like.  I am a one man band so don't have secure offices to leave my machine on all the time.  Is there any other solutions?

Hi sebbyp,

I suspect it is OneDrive for Personal?

Login your Power BI service, and from the Get Data->Files, Select OneDrve-Personal, when signing in with your OneDrive with your Microsoft account, be sure to select the Keep me signed in option. This way, Power BI will be able to connect to your workbook file about every hour and make sure your dataset and reports in Power BI are in-sync.

More information, check Get data from Excel workbook files.

Reply back if any further assistance needed.

Regards

@sebbyp Unfortunately not. When you publish your report to power bi service you will have to mention it under Dataset settings which gateway you want to use for it. You can only choose one gateway and so you can't have report that automatically switches to personal gateway on your laptop when gateway on your desktop machine goes offline. On other note gateway acts as a bridge between your report and data source so even say if it was possible to automatically switch between gateway on your laptop and desktop machine when latter goes offline how will you have data source for the report on both the machines.

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