I am using Power BI API.
I've got a dataset with some tables and rows.
From Power BI API Console I don't have any issue when retrieving datasets or tables.
However the PUT verb on a table resource to update its schema always returns a 504 - Proxy request timed out
It's the first time I use Apiary IO so it might be its problem and not Power BI update, but that leads me to some questions:
Is there any workaround to test Power BI with, for example, Fiddler? I can type the url and body but I will need an Authorization header with the OAuth2 token if I'm not mistaken. How can I get that? ApiaryIO seems to hide it.
As per Update Schema Documentation the URL with the resource is https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/datasets/{myDatasetId}/tables/{myTableName}
and the verb is a PUT. What is then the meaning of the "name": "???" parameter that goes in the JSON body? Is it the table's name or something else? I am assuming it's the table name but it seems redundant as I am already accessing the resource {myTableName} as per the given URL.
And my last related question is how to rename a specific table's column without modifying its data? This is what I'm trying to achieve by updating the schema but I don't understand how does Power BI know what column I am trying to rename.
Thank you!
Sorry that you're having trouble. You can get a token in two ways -the right way is to create an app in AAD (here's how). The wrong way ;) is to open the Power BI.com service, in a browser then open fiddler, then press F5 to reload. You should be able to see the Access Token in various requests. If you register an app, you can plug in your App's information in one of the samples we have https://powerbi.microsoft.com/developers, see client app or web app.
The name you provide in the table is the friendly human readable name that appears in the UI when you're building a report. Without it the system is unusable by humans :).
Let me get back to you on #3.
Calling PUT table will attempt to save upgrade the table without loosing any data (unless you removed columns). If it can't, it will return a conflict error. If you still want to update the table schema, you would have to delete the rows and call PUT table again. There is currently no direct way to rename a column. PUT table would treat it like a delete and add for that column. You would loose the data in that column but not the whole table.
Related
Perhaps better to rephrase my question.
If I have a powerbi report..
Can I somehow make copies of this report with different data(set?) via an API and on demand?
e.g.
User requests a report with some parameters,
Existing report gets copies with a new dataset and published
tnx
Brian
== origional question below ==
Would anyone be able to point in in the right direction here.
I currently have a c# application that generates reports which are simply excel files.
Each time I create a report I simply open an excel file with some preexisting formatting, set the data in a particular sheet then save it to a new location.
How can I achieve something similar with PowerBI?
Ideaily I'd like to open a precanned powerbi report, pass a parameter to the 'dataset' I've just generated,
I dont have any string feeling as to what the dataset would be, I'm open to whatever works,
database/static dataset created by csharp somehow/webservice/etc.
Can anyone suggest how? tnx
How about creating you Power BI report based on your existing Excel files? Make sure to store them on SharePoint so that the PowerBI Online Service can pick them up w/o additional gateways. You can then use your app to trigger the report refresh as soon as the Excel files have been updated.
The PowerBI connector doesn't work, since it defaults to the IE browser, and our IE browser is locked down by our IT department (can't connect to smartsheet site). So, I need to use the "web" API option to get my smartsheet data. I have the data coming in, but I'm brand new at this and I'm having trouble organizing it. I have 8 columns that are repeating as rows, and the cell data contains a bunch of metadata values that I don't want. How do I get this so the columns become columns again, with the cell data as rows (with just the face values) and not repeating?
screenshot of data in PowerBI
I think you need to read a good part of the documentation in order to get used to the responses you get from Smarsheet, in brief you get a Json data structure.
First read, https://smartsheet-platform.github.io/api-docs/#how-to-read-a-sheet-response
Then you need to make the json connection to PowerBI like this example, https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/4621/using-power-bi-with-json-data-sources-and-files/
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.
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.
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!!