How to Update Database in Power BI

Your Power BI report looks fantastic, filled with insightful charts and clear metrics. The only problem? The data is from last Tuesday. For your reports to drive smart, timely decisions, they need to reflect what’s happening now. This guide will walk you through exactly how to update and refresh your database connections in Power BI, ensuring your dashboards are always current and reliable.

Why Keep Your Power BI Data Fresh?

Stale data is more than just an inconvenience, it can actively lead your team in the wrong direction. Imagine setting your advertising budget based on last month's performance or evaluating sales outreach using quarter-old numbers. You'd be making critical decisions based on an outdated reality.

Setting up an automatic refresh schedule allows you to:

Make Confident Decisions: Base your strategy on the most up-to-date information available.
Save Valuable Time: Stop wasting hours every week manually exporting CSVs and refreshing reports. Automate the process and focus on analysis.
Build Trust: When your team and stakeholders know the data is always current, they trust the insights you provide.

Understanding Power BI Refresh Types

Before diving into the "how-to," it’s helpful to know the different ways Power BI can update your data. There isn't just one "refresh" button, the right method depends on where you are working and what you need.

Manual Refresh in Power BI Desktop: This is a simple, on-demand refresh you perform while building your report. It pulls a fresh copy of the data from the source database directly into your PBIX file. This is great for development and quick checks.
Manual Refresh in Power BI Service: Once you've published your report online to the Power BI Service, you can trigger a one-time data refresh for the underlying dataset. This is useful for updating the report right before a big meeting.
Scheduled Refresh in Power BI Service: This is the key to true automation. You can configure the Power BI Service to automatically refresh your dataset from the database on a set schedule (e.g., every morning at 8:00 AM). This is the set-it-and-forget-it method that keeps your published reports consistently updated.

The Crucial Link: On-Premises Data Gateway

If your database is hosted on a local server within your company’s network (this is known as "on-premises") and not in the cloud (like Azure SQL), Power BI Service needs a secure way to reach it. It can't just access a server sitting in your office over the public internet.

This is where the On-premises data gateway comes in. Think of it as a secure bridge or a doorman that stands between your internal database and the cloud-based Power BI Service.

Here’s what it does:

You install the gateway software on a computer that is always on and connected to your local network.
The gateway authenticates with your Power BI account.
When Power BI Service needs to refresh data, it sends a secure request to the gateway.
The gateway retrieves the data from your on-premises database and securely sends it back to Power BI Service to update your dataset.

Without this gateway, scheduled refreshes for on-premises databases simply won’t work. For cloud-based data sources like Azure SQL Database or Snowflake, you don't need a gateway because they are already accessible from the internet.

Setting Up Your First Manual Refresh

Before you automate, let's walk through a manual refresh. This ensures your connection is working properly.

In Power BI Desktop

This is the most straightforward refresh. While you have your report file (the PBIX file) open:

Navigate to the Home ribbon at the top of the window.
In the Queries section, simply click the Refresh button.
Power BI will reconnect to your database, run all the queries you defined in the Power Query Editor, and load the new data into your report model. You'll see a small window showing the progress.

If there are any issues with the connection - like incorrect credentials or a network interruption - you will get an error message right away.

In Power BI Service

Once your report is published, you can initiate a manual refresh without opening Power BI Desktop.

Log in to your Power BI Service account (app.powerbi.com).
Navigate to the workspace where you published your report.
Find the dataset associated with your report. Don't click the report itself, but the dataset, which has a different icon.
Hover over the dataset and click the small "Refresh now" icon (it looks like a circular arrow).

This will kick off an on-demand refresh. You can check the 'Refresh history' in the dataset settings to watch its progress and see if it completed successfully.

How to Set Up a Scheduled Refresh Step-by-Step

Ready to automate the process? The scheduled refresh keeps your published reports fresh without any manual effort. Let's set it up.

Step 1: Publish Your Report to Power BI Service

If you haven't already, save your work in Power BI Desktop and click the Publish button on the Home ribbon. Choose the workspace where you want the report to live.

Step 2: Go to the Dataset Settings

In the Power BI Service, navigate to the correct workspace. Find the dataset for your report, click the three dots (...), and select Settings.

Step 3: Check Gateway Connection

In the settings screen, scroll down to the Gateway and cloud connections section. If you are connecting to an on-premises database, this is where you associate your dataset with the gateway you’ve installed. You should see your gateway listed and a status showing it's "Online". If not, you need to go back and ensure the gateway software is running correctly on its designated machine.

Step 4: Provide Data Source Credentials

Scroll down to the Data source credentials section. Power BI needs to store the username and password to access your database during the automated refresh. Click Edit credentials and enter the information securely. This is encrypted and stored by Power BI so it can log in on your behalf.

Tip: Make sure the account you use has at least read permissions for the tables you need in the database.

Step 5: Configure the Schedule

This is where you tell Power BI when and how often to update. Find the Scheduled refresh section and toggle it to On.

Refresh frequency: Choose between Daily or Weekly.
Time zone: Select your local time zone to ensure refreshes happen at the time you expect.
Time: Click "Add another time" to specify the times of day you want the refresh to run. For a Power BI Pro license, you can add up to 8 time slots per day. For Premium, you can add up to 48.
Send refresh failure notifications: It’s a good idea to keep this box checked. If the refresh fails for any reason (e.g., the database server is temporarily down), Power BI will email you to let you know.

Once you are done, click Apply. That's it! Your report will now update automatically according to the schedule you’ve set.

Troubleshooting Common Refresh Failures

Sometimes, refreshes fail. It happens to everyone. Here are some of the most common reasons why and how to fix them:

Error: The gateway is offline or could not be reached.

This is an issue with your gateway machine. Ensure the computer where your gateway is installed is turned on, connected to the internet, and that the gateway software service is running.

Error: Incorrect credentials provided.

This usually happens when the password for the database account has changed. Go back to the Dataset Settings > Data source credentials, and re-enter the correct, updated password.

Error: Timeout expired.

This means your query took too long to execute. This can be caused by a very large dataset or an inefficient query. Try to optimize your data retrieval in Power Query Editor by filtering out unnecessary columns or rows earlier in your data transformation steps. You may also need to work with your database administrator to improve performance on the database side.

Error: The column '[ColumnName]' of the table was not found.

This is a classic schema change problem. It means a column name in your source database has been changed or deleted since you last designed the report. To fix this, open the PBIX file in Power BI Desktop, go into the Power Query Editor, find the step that's causing the error (it will be marked with a yellow warning), and correct it to reflect the new structure of your database.

Final Thoughts

Connecting Power BI to your database and setting up a scheduled refresh is the key to creating dynamic, reliable reports that everyone can count on. By using the Power BI Service with a data gateway for your on-premise sources, you can automate your reporting and leave the drudgery of manual updates behind.

We understand that managing gateways, credentials, and troubleshooting platform-specific failures takes time away from actual analysis. At Graphed, we’ve built a platform that eliminates this friction entirely. You can connect your marketing and sales data sources in just a few clicks — no gateway configuration needed. Dashboards stay up-to-date in real-time automatically, so you're always looking at live data without ever having to set up a refresh schedule again.