Power BI refresher

Script for automation of refreshing Power BI workbooks. Built on Python 3.6 and pywinauto.

Developed for Power BI Desktop June 2019 Update (2.70.5494.561) on Windows 10 with English locale.

Installation

Install using pip

pip install pbixrefresher

Usage

pbixrefresher <WORKBOOK> [-workspace <WORKSPACE>] [--refresh-timeout <REFRESH_TIMEOUT>] [--no-publish]

where <WORKBOOK> is path to .pbix file
      --workspace <text> is name of online Power BI service work space to publish in (default My workspace)
      --refresh-timeout <number> is time in seconds to wait to refresh end (default 30000)
      --no-publish is switch to just refresh and save the workbook and skip publishing to online service (default False)
      --init-wait <number> is time to wait until Power BI Desktop starts (default 15)

Scheduling in Windows Task Scheduler

Please keep in mind that this script uses GUI of Power BI Desktop and it needs that a user is logged in Windows session. You should also deactivate lock screen time. Ideally you should schedule the script on a computer where the GUI is not used to not interfere the scripting, for example dedicated Virtual Machine.

Open Task Scheduler
Click Create Basic Task
Fill a Name and click Next
Set a trigger and click Next
Pick Start a program as an action and click Next
in Program/script type absolute path to pbixrefresher.exe in your scripts folder in Python installation path (for example "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Scripts\pbixrefresher.exe")

in Arguments type file name of the workbook (for example "sample.pbix")

in Start in type absolute path workbook (for example "C:\workbooks")
Confirm and Finish

See how it works

Bug reporting