Switching the Data source in a Power BI Report - powerbi

I have an Existing report in Power BI with Oracle Data Source from which I had directly access the Table.
But now I need to Change the Data Source of the Report using SSAS.
By Using SSAS, we can access the oracle Tables and deploy the SSAS in Azure Service.
Now through this Azure Service we can access the Data.
My Question is Without any Changes in the Report, Can we Simply Change the DataSource? Because I'm Showing Lot of Graphs in that Report.
Since I'm New to Power BI , Is this possible?

There will likely be an unpredictably large amount of other issues (character encoding, date formatting, etc.) that you'll have to work through.
The way I might approach this problem is, if the tables are exactly identical, or you didn't make any changes within power query (like removing columns, merging tables, etc.) you may be able to modify the M code within the advanced editor, and try to swap the data sources to see if it works.
Go into "Transform Data"
Select the table you want to modify
Click the "Advanced Editor" icon in the ribbon.
Here, I imported an excel file, but for you, it should show some kind of "AnalysisServices" line. I don't have an SSAS database to connect to so I can't validate. Try replacing this line with the connection string to your SSAS datasource and see if it works.
Save, apply update, and see if it works?
Again, this is not really advisable, but if you want to give it a try, and the data sources are identical, this is how I might approach the problem before just re-making the report whole-cloth.

Related

Power BI Dataflow Updates But Dataset and Reports Do Not

I am in the process of creating a dashboard in power BI with multiple people. Currently I have 4 entities in a Dataflow that move to a dataset which are then visualized in reports. I recently added a column to one of my entities that I would like to show up in a report that is already created. However, despite the column being added to the entity (it shows up when I try to create a new report), it isn't displayed in the older report. How can I get my new column to display in an already created report?
You need to get the old report, go to the Query Editor and refresh the preview for it to pick up the new column.
You may have to go through the steps to make sure it is not removed, by for example reducing the columns down via a selection. When you create a new report you can see the column as it is getting the dataflow table structure with out any history in the query. Note this is not just for Dataflows, but for most types of connection where the structure changes, for example CSV, Excel etc.
Check if the source data set is set to private by the person who published the report. Changing this might grant you access to the source dataset.

How to model queries in Power BI for daily append of new data instead of overwriting

I'm trying to build a simple report in Power BI based upon data published on a website.
Here is what I want to achieve
This website publishes data for COVID cases in the country.
The number are just the current numbers, without any time-series.
I want to fetch these numbers from this website daily and build a report on
top of it (with time series kind of analysis).
So I fetch these numbers (Get Data > Web > URL) and get this into a query I then add
a custom column with a timestmap (M's DateTime.LocalNow() function)
and get this data with the required timestamp.
Now I want to refresh this query daily, so that I get daily results in this query.
6. As expected, PBI simply overwrites the existing rows with new data,
with the latest timestamp (my custom column).
I tried few things like:-
Creating a new query and appending data to it, it doesn't seem to work, existing data gets over-written (maybe the way I have created the new query).
Explored incremental refresh functionality, it doesn't seem to fit my use case.
Tried looking at other similar posts, none seem to help me resolve this.
Questions:-
Is there a simple workaround to circumvent this (point#7) and have PBI append new data instead of overwriting existing data.
Am i correct on point#2 above (incremental refresh)?
Appreciate any pointers. Thanks in advance!
There is no simple workaround within Power BI.
Power BI is not designed to be used as a database where you store historical data. It's designed to connect to data and create reports from that, so you'll need to store the daily data somewhere external.
There are tons of ways to store the data. E.g., you could save them as CSVs in a folder that Power BI loads from or you could write them to a database table and connect to that.
Edit: That said, there is a non-simple workaround if this is something you really must do.
Though not recommended, you can use incremental refresh to trick Power BI into doing what you want.

How to use real database in Power BI and make it refresh dynamicaly?

I'm new to Power BI (Free Version) and I have been asked to develop a report system which generates report from an excel sheet, the reports work good for only the data I have collected.
but my question is how to connect to the data immediately from SQL server without the need to convert it to excel and then import it in power BI, I also want the data to be refreshed dynamically.
One of the solutions I tried is to add new dataset but I get the following message:
Refresh can't be scheduled because the data set doesn't contain any
data model connections, or is a worksheet or linked table. To schedule
refresh, the data must be loaded into the data model.
I have looked for many solutions but none has worked.
am I missing a concept? thank you
If this data is stored in a SQL SERVER table it is a pretty straight forward process.
When you create a new power bi report (.Pbix) you should see a prompt asking you if you want to "Get Data". You would select the 'SQL Server Database' option - See the image below:
Then, you will be asked to enter the Server and Database name, and to specify either 'Import' or 'Direct Query' mode. If you choose 'Import' the data will be refreshed every time you access the report or upon 'Refresh' within a report session. If you choose the latter, the connection will always be live i.e. any changes to the data in your database will be reflected in the report.
Once you get passed this window, you will be asked to either specify credentials or use a windows authentication to access the database and server. After that you can either specify a query to pull in some data or you can select from a list of tables.
I hope this helps!!

How to access single tenant Azure Analsysis Server with Power BI Embedded

So, currently I'm having difficulty understanding how Power BI Embedded can be setup so that each customer can access data from their own separate Azure Analysis Service, this is an App Owns Data situation. Analysis Services will be running in In-Memory mode and it will be accessed from Power BI via Live Connect.
Ideally I would like the Power BI Report to be ignorant of the data set/data source until the embedded report is provided with a parameter (e.g. connection string) which the report interprets so that it knows which server to connect to. So, ideally have: one Workspace, one Report, and zero (or a fake) Dataset.
The following is roughly what I'm looking to do (note the Red and Blue flow access a different server):
It looks like if I created both a Report and Dataset per customer I can achieve my goal but this seems like a poor approach since if the Report needs to be updated this involves updating, potentially, hundreds of reports. Also creating hundreds of Reports seems like unnecessary overhead when all Power BI needs to change for each request is the connection string pointing to the data source.
So is it possible to share the Workspace and Report across all customers but having completely separate data sources? Or is my approach in conflict with the way Power BI expects to function?
To date, I've tried using Query Parameters when configuring the data source in Power BI Desktop but I get the following error:
The connect live option for this file is disabled because it already contains data from another data source. You cannot explore live data and connect to another type of data source in the same file.
Please note,
Every report in Power BI can be connected to only one Dataset.
There is NO ability to dynamically change a connection string on the fly.
Currently, and in the foreseeable future, you'd have to clone the report & dataset per customer (or per connection setup) and modify the new dataset's connection string to match.
You can then dynamically choose which report to display based on your customer's needs.
Cloning a report can be done using:
POST https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/reports/{report_id}/Clone
POST https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{group_id}/reports/{report_id}/Clone
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt784674.aspx
Changing the connection string would be done using:
POST https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/datasets/{dataset_id}/Default.SetAllConnections
(similar API for groups)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt748181.aspx
using the C#.NET library provided by Power BI team, you'd use
Reports.CloneReport(string reportKey, CloneReportRequest requestParameters)
Datasets.SetAllDatasetConnections(string datasetKey, ConnectionDetails parameters)

Publishing from Power BI Desktop always replaces the datasets

If I update the modelling in Power BI Desktop and then publish, I get the following message:
"You already have a dataset named 'xxxxx' in Power BI. Do you want to replace the existing dataset with this one?"
How do I get it to update rather than replace the dataset?
There is no update option. You can only replace, or, if you want to keep the existing dataset, rename the one you are trying to publish so it is unique in the workspace you are publishing to.
A dataset is a query against a source system and, if you are not in direct/live query mode, the associated data. The report you are publishing requires the dataset it is sourced from. The dataset is not separable from the report.
Even if there were no changes between the old dataset and the new dataset (i.e. you just made a cosmetic change to the report), PowerBI.com would have no way of knowing that unless it uploaded the new dataset and compared it to the old dataset. That would take so much longer than a replacement that I'm not sure what the value would be.
Sidenote: if you're looking to do an incremental update (e.g. only load new rows, and not re-upload existing rows), Power BI doesn't support this yet, but there is an idea you can vote on to get this feature added: https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/7288623-incremental-data-loads. However, you specifically asked about publishing the report, so I doubt this is what you are looking for.