Stop Pressing Publish in Power BI – OneDrive or Sharepoint can do that for you

If you’re still using the Publish button in Power BI Desktop, there’s a better and more efficient way to manage your reports while saving time.

By leveraging OneDrive and SharePoint integration, you can speed up your workflow, reduce errors, and improve collaboration. Here’s how you can do it:

Step 1: Enable Save to OneDrive and SharePoint Preview Features

First, ensure that your Power BI Desktop is set up correctly:

1. Open Power BI Desktop.
2. Navigate to File > Options and Settings > Options.
3. Under Preview features, enable Save to OneDrive and SharePoint.
   
4. Restart Power BI Desktop for the changes to take effect.

 

Step 2: Stop Using the Publish Button

Once you have enabled OneDrive and SharePoint integration, there’s no need to use the Publish button anymore. Instead, follow these steps:

1. Build you Power BI report, here’s a simple example report I put together for the purposes of this blog:
   
2. Save your Power BI file (.pbix) directly to your OneDrive or SharePoint.
3. Go to Power BI Service.
4. In your Workspace, click on Upload.
5. Select your OneDrive or SharePoint file and upload it.
   
6. View the report to ensure it has uploaded correctly
   

Step 3: Enable OneDrive Refresh for Automatic Updates

To keep your semantic model up to date, you need to enable OneDrive refresh:

1. In Power BI Service, navigate to your dataset settings.
2. Locate the Semantic Model settings.
3. Enable OneDrive refresh to automatically sync changes from your OneDrive or SharePoint file.
   

Here it is in action

First I made a change in Power BI Desktop to add a ‘City’ column to the report.

Once I saved it, I viewed it the in the service and the update had been automatically applied without the need to publish or even manually refresh it.

Benefits of This Approach

• Time-Saving – No need to manually publish each time you make updates, simply save and everything else is taken care of.
• Seamless Collaboration – Team members can access and edit reports without version conflicts.
• Automatic Updates – OneDrive refresh keeps your reports in sync without manual intervention.
• Better Version Control – Easily revert to previous versions if needed.

By switching to this new workflow, you’ll be able to work smarter, and more securely in Power BI. Give it a try and experience a more efficient way to manage your reports.

For more information, visit the Microsoft Learn article found here.

 

Tags: Data Model, OneDrive, Power BI, Semantic Model, Sharepoint