Upload and read an excel file directly in Report - [solution required]

[Amaro]

Dear community

I'm trying to figure out a solution for a specific - yet common - issue I would like to solve.

I'd like to find a smart way to allow a report user on powerBi services (with read only rights) to import an external excel file within the report itself and display the data together with an existing datasource. I'd like to show the data with minimal delay (<1 min).

I was thinking that we should use a combination of powerautomate and powerapps / or alternatively forms. If anyone has specific proven approaches you have seen / used please reply to this post.

Cheers

A

[v-cazheng-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Amaro,

Unfortunately, it’s not supported in Power BI. Firstly, users with only Read permissions are not allowed to edit the report and make any change to the dataset which stores the data source info and data. If you would like to import a new excel file to the report, it means you want to add a new data source to corresponding dataset. For such kind of operations, you need do it in Power BI Desktop.

Secondly, if you don’t want to directly modify the datatset/model of current report, then you could give Build permissions to some users and they can connect to this dataset to build their own model after then. Or they can create dataflow/datamarts based on this dataset. Currently, you could combine a new data source with a dataset/report with these methods. For how to give Build permissions to users, you may refer to Build permission for shared datasets - Power BI | Microsoft Docs.

For the use of dataflows or datamarts, you can refer to Introduction to dataflows and self-service data prep - Power BI | Microsoft Docs and Introduction to datamarts - Power BI | Microsoft Docs.

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please let me know. Thanks a lot!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun

[Amaro]

Thank you for your reply. I not convinced there is NO solution.

For instance:

- I can upload a file via powerApps canvas app

- I can trigger a powerautomate script that copy the content of the excel in a database (e.g. dataverse)

- I can trigger a report refresh and get the data updated (or use a direct query to dataverse).

Yes, this is not "real-time" but it is not that far.

A

[v-cazheng-msft]

Hi @Amaro,

But for Power BI, there are several different kinds of roles in a workspace and they have different permissions to the content in it. Just as I mentioned earlier, If you would like to make some changes to the repot dataset, then the user must have built permission which means Read only users couldn’t perform such operations.

To edit report content such as add a visual, users must have Edit permissions to the report which means they need to be at least a Contributor. Viewers with Read only permissions are not supported to make any change to the report. They are only allowed to view the report and interact with the report.

So these operations from Read only users are limited by the design.

Roles in the new workspaces in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let me know. Thanks a lot!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun