Refresh a Power BI dataset that feeds from SharePoint list automatically

The Power BI team recently shipped some cool new flow options and one of them is really cool. Many times I hear of reports and dataset that fully rely on SharePoint lists. These lists are used by business groups that don’t have the rights to spin up and Azure SQL database or just want to keep a simple list to store their dimensions. SharePoint lists are great for that.

The new flow option allows you to automatically update the dataset whenever a new item is added to the list, that is pretty cool.

Here is how it works. Start at your list in SharePoint and click automate and select create new flow:

A new pane opens to the side, the flow we want is not part of the default list so we select “see your flows”

This opens flow where you can start a new automated flow which we need.

This opens a new flow, give it a name and choose “When an item is created” as trigger for the flow:

Nest pick the list you want to trigger on:

Then finally configure what happens when the trigger is fired. In this case we want to select “Refresh a dataset”.

Next you can select the dataset you want to refresh:

Now every time an item gets added to the SharePoint list the dataset gets updated with the new information. Very cool!