Streaming Dashboard Tiles - formatting

[mcody]

Hi,

Hope I have correct forum, if not please redirect me.

Power BI Pro.

Have a dashboard, direct query (from On-premises MS SQL). Updating as per scheduled refresh (15 minutes)

Customer would like faster refresh.

Do not have premium, so using REST API would subject to limit: 8 refreshes per day, correct?

So tried Streaming dataset, with periodic Powershell script to update a Streaming dataset.

Works.

However Streaming Dashboard Tiles formatting is fixed. Anyway to alter formatting? Programmatically even.

In particular, Display Units, colors on Streaming Gauge Tile? Or are these Dashboard Tiles visualization settings fixed?

Other solutions/suggestions welcome also.

Any help appreciated.

[cmitra]

Hi,

I'm trying to set up a streaming data set from Adobe Analytics and saw your comment on '

So tried Streaming dataset, with periodic Powershell script to update a Streaming dataset.

Works.' - How you did that? I have created a streaming dataset and included the values but tile showed up empty in Dashboard 😞 I'm pretty sure I'm missing few things. 

[mcody]

Hi,

Don't know anything about Adobe Analytics, but if you can connect and read AA with script, then should be able to push.

Assume you have Power BI Pro.

Suggest start with one value, get that working and then take it from there.

For initial test you could generate random number in script initially, then add AA connect/read.

Power BI Service:

• Set up Streaming data set.
• Add field (Number)
• Copy the dataset URL, you will need for script.
• When you complete, select Powershell tab to get example "stub" script, copy.
• Create dashboard
• Add tile. Select Custom Data Streaming tile. Select dataset, value etc.

Run example script on machine with web access, see if updates tile.

You could add random number write into this script and also, make it repeat periodically using do{ }while(1) construct + sleep or something similar. Confirm periodic update.

Then finish with real data.

I ran my script (about 12 values), every 2 seconds. Worked fine, script on same machine as MS SQL source

Some points on Streaming tiles.

• Push is subject to constaints. 5 request/s. Check Power BI website for details.
• Limited to few choices of tile types
• Cannot do much formatting of tiles
• Cannot have alerts on streaming data
• Cannot do any DAX functions etc in Power Bi on streaming data, so must do any calculations before pushing.

If using Powershell, recommend you use ISE Powershell app, and write out values to console. Helps with debug/test

If going to use this in "production" after test. Then you might want to set up script to start automatically and run in background.

Or maybe even better, write final version in Visual Studio, compile and run as a service.

Lots of material out there to help you.

Two articles I found useful (kudos to authors):

http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/sachatomey/post/2017/01/19/Power-BI-Streaming-Datasets-An-Alternative-Powe...

https://chris.koester.io/index.php/2017/11/05/push-data-into-power-bi-streaming-datasets-with-csharp...

If you stuck, perhaps I could help you with an example script using your Dataset Push URL, but I am no expert!

Give some feedback on your progress.

[cmitra]

Thanks !! The links are very helpful and I tried testing the script with dummy values, repeat and sleep. It worked and updates the tile with default value.

Found another link for similar information

https://blog.ukotic.net/2017/02/27/streaming-datasets-powershell-powercli-power-bi/

But when I was trying to get the values, I got

Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found

I have used the Endpoint URL and Eventsource ( Report Suite Id from Adobe). Not sure what else missing...

Thanks,

Chaitali

[mcody]

Hi,

I don't recall getting any 404 errors.

You double checked your dataset API URL, values and types?

If you want, sent me your dataset URL and name/type of a test value. I try my test script on it.

[cmitra]

Here is the endpoint url https://api.powerbi.com/beta/b7f604a0-00a9-4188-9248-42f3a5aac2e9/datasets/9120ef44-dcb3-497c-88e1-9...

I'm using couple values from Adobe reports itself for testing and types very likely correct.

"Push Notifications Click" , number

"JFU $ Ads Clipped", number

"Visits", number

[v-caliao-msft · Accepted solution]

@mcody,

However Streaming Dashboard Tiles formatting is fixed. Anyway to alter formatting? 

With a streaming dataset, there is no underlying database, so you cannot build report visuals using the data that flows in from the stream. As such, we cannot make use of report functionality such as filtering, custom visuals, and other report functions.

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,

Charlie Liao