Subscriptions, Alerts, Endorsement, Gateways and Refresh

What it is

Once content is published, you need readers to notice it, trust it and see current data. Subscriptions send a snapshot by email. Data alerts warn when a number crosses a limit. Endorsement marks content as promoted or certified. A gateway lets the service reach data that is not on the internet, and scheduled refresh keeps an Import model up to date.

How it works

Email subscriptions

A subscription emails you a snapshot and a link to a report or dashboard on a schedule. Select Subscribe on the report.

The tenant admin must enable subscriptions. With row level security, the preview image shows data as the subscription owner sees it, so take care. Microsoft 365 groups cannot be used as recipients, but distribution lists and mail enabled security groups can. Paginated reports can be subscribed too, with attachments such as PDF, Excel or Word.

Data alerts

A data alert sends a notification when a value goes above or below a threshold.

• You set alerts on dashboards, on tiles pinned from a report that are a card, gauge or KPI. They are not available in Power BI Desktop.
• The value must be numeric, and alerts fire only when the data refreshes.
• You choose a condition (above or below), a threshold and how often to notify, at most once an hour or once a day, plus an optional email.
• Alerts appear in the notification center, and you can connect them to Power Automate.
• Only you see alerts you set, and each user can have up to 250 alerts.

Promote or certify content

Endorsement helps people find reliable content. It applies to semantic models, dataflows, reports and apps.

Endorsed items rank higher in search, and endorsed semantic models can be made discoverable, so users without access can find and request it. A good description helps.

When a gateway is required

An on-premises data gateway is software installed on a Windows machine in your network that lets the Power BI service reach on premises data using outbound connections. You need one when the service must query or refresh data that it cannot reach over the internet.

There are three types.

• Standard mode is centrally managed and used by many people. It is the choice for DirectQuery, live connections and high availability clusters.
• Personal mode is for one user and only for Import refresh.
• VNet data gateway is a managed service for sources secured in an Azure virtual network.

To add redundancy, add a second gateway to the same cluster. Direct Lake models do not use gateways, as they support cloud connections only.

Scheduled refresh

Import models need a refresh to stay current. In the semantic model Settings, set Refresh, then configure the time slots and the gateway connection and credentials.

To fix a disabled schedule, correct the cause, such as updating credentials, then switch Configure a refresh schedule back on. Refresh history lists status and errors. DirectQuery and live connections do not rely on scheduled refresh for the data itself. You can also run Refresh now manually.

A worked scenario

A finance team has an Import model on an on premises SQL Server. The analyst asks IT to install a standard gateway and sets scheduled refresh to run daily at 6 a.m. on a Pro workspace. Three weeks later refreshes stop because a service account password expired, and the schedule is disabled after four failures. She updates the credentials and turns the schedule back on. The report owner also adds an alert on a card for cash balance, and the head of finance subscribes to the report every Monday.