How do I use data in Power BI Desktop that is either live or frequently updated?

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I want to create a dashboard for our office that shows the progress of my team in real time.

I get the data from an on premises sql database, modeled the data in Power BI Desktop, and want to show the data on a TV that shows the Power BI website.

But how do I keep the data up to date?

I know that the Power BI Website offers a scheduled refresh but I can only set 7 times per day and I want the dashboard to refresh at least every 5 minutes. I also know about the streaming datasets but you cant use them in Power BI Desktop and I want to use custom visualisations. When I try to use Direct Query I get the following message :

This Step leads to a Query which is not supported in Direct Query Mode.

Is it possible to create live dashboards using Power BI? Or do you know software that is more suitable for my purpose?

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powerbidashboard

1 Answers

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This is possible with a Power Bi Report Server installed on premises and SQL Server Agent running with your on premises sql database. You develop your report and save it to the Power Bi Report Server. Then you can setup your Data Refresh interval to every 5 minutes.

This walk through shows you how to setup a Data refresh interval for every 2 minutes. Use it as a guide to create your report and save to Report Server. Once saved to Report Server you can setup a data refresh interval for your report to every 5 minutes.

You will need the latest version of Report Server (March 2018 at the time of this answer) and a the latest version of Power Bi Desktop Optimized for Report Server (March 2018 also). SQL Server Agent will be needed to be installed at your SQL Server. The SQL Server Agent will store the data refresh job specification that you define using the Power Bi Report Server interface.