Note
On-premises data gateway guidance is organized by scenario. This article includes guidance specific to Power BI. For guidance that applies across supported Microsoft cloud services, see the general on-premises data gateway documentation.
Do I need to upgrade the on-premises data gateway?
Yes, keep your on-premises data gateway up to date. After a gateway goes out of support, the Power BI service can block operations that route through the outdated gateway. For a list of currently supported versions, see Currently supported monthly updates for the on-premises data gateways.
During the final 90 days before the end-of-support date, operations continue, but you can receive warnings in email, refresh history or an XMLA response. The warning message is: "The on-premises data gateway version that this semantic model uses is deprecated and will stop working in the future. Please upgrade your data gateway to the latest version to avoid connectivity issues."
After the end-of-support date, the service can block scheduled refresh, on-demand refresh, and DirectQuery operations that route through the outdated gateway. The error message is: "The on-premises data gateway version that this semantic model uses is no longer supported. Please upgrade your data gateway to the latest version to restore connectivity."
Power BI Desktop, SQL Server Analysis Services, and scenarios that don't route through an on-premises data gateway aren't affected.
To stay on a supported version, keep your gateway servers on a regular monthly update cadence and treat refresh warnings as upgrade signals. To install the latest version, see Install an on-premises data gateway.
Are any special permissions required to install the gateway and manage it in the Power BI service?
No special permissions are required. You need to sign in with either a work or school email account.
Can I upload Excel workbooks with Power Pivot data models that connect to on-premises data sources, and do I need a gateway for this scenario?
Yes, you can upload the workbook. No, you don’t need a gateway. But, because the data will reside in the Excel data model, reports in Power BI based on the Excel workbook won't be live. To refresh reports in Power BI, you have to reupload an updated workbook each time. Or, use the gateway with scheduled refresh.
If users share dashboards with a DirectQuery connection, will other users see the data even though they might not have the same permissions?
For a dashboard connected to Analysis Services, users will see only the data they have access to. If the users don't have the same permissions, they won't be able to see any data. For other data sources, all users will share the credentials entered by the admin for that data source.
Why can't I connect to my Oracle server?
You might need to install the Oracle client and configure the tnsnames.ora file with the proper server information to connect to your Oracle server. The oracle client is a separate installation outside of the gateway. For more information, see Install the Oracle client.
Are R scripts supported?
R scripts are supported only for personal mode.
Can I use msmdpump.dll to create custom effective username mappings for Analysis Services?
No. This use isn't supported.
Can I use the gateway to connect to a multidimensional (OLAP) instance?
Yes. The on-premises data gateway supports live connections to both Analysis Services Tabular and Multidimensional models.
What if I install the gateway on a computer in a different domain from my on-premises server that uses Windows authentication?
No guarantees. It depends on the trust relationship between the two domains. If two different domains are in a trusted domain model, the gateway might be able to connect to the Analysis Services server, and the effective username can be resolved. If not, you might encounter a sign-in failure.
How can I find out what effective username is being passed to my on-premises Analysis Services server?
Next steps
More questions? Ask the Power BI Community.