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mrozzano's avatar
mrozzano
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1 year ago
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Does incremental refresh do anything if I don't have a data destination ?

Is a data destination is required for incremental refresh to work ? I'm able to set up incremental refresh without a data destination, but does that do anything ? My issue is incremental refresh does...
dataflow
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    1 year ago

    Hi mrozzano ,

     

    Incremental Refresh requires a data target to operate effectively. Without a data destination, the Incremental Refresh setting will have no place to store the refreshed data, rendering the setting invalid.

     

    In your scenario, Dataflow A has incremental refresh enabled but no target, while Dataflow B gets data from Dataflow A and Dataflow B's target is a datalake repository. Due to the lack of a target to store the refreshed data, the incremental refresh in Dataflow A won't actually do anything.


    For incremental refresh to work properly, you need to ensure that the Dataflow has a valid target so that the refreshed data can be stored and accessed by subsequent Dataflows or reports.

     

    For more details, you can refer to below document:

    Incremental refresh in Dataflow Gen2 - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

     

    Best Regards,
    Adamk Kong

     

    If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

     

     

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
1 year ago

Hi mrozzano ,

 

Incremental Refresh requires a data target to operate effectively. Without a data destination, the Incremental Refresh setting will have no place to store the refreshed data, rendering the setting invalid.

 

In your scenario, Dataflow A has incremental refresh enabled but no target, while Dataflow B gets data from Dataflow A and Dataflow B's target is a datalake repository. Due to the lack of a target to store the refreshed data, the incremental refresh in Dataflow A won't actually do anything.


For incremental refresh to work properly, you need to ensure that the Dataflow has a valid target so that the refreshed data can be stored and accessed by subsequent Dataflows or reports.

 

For more details, you can refer to below document:

Incremental refresh in Dataflow Gen2 - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

 

Best Regards,
Adamk Kong

 

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

 

 

  • mrozzano's avatar
    mrozzano
    Icon for Advocate I rankAdvocate I
    1 year ago

    Thank you for clarifying !

    Some feedback : Because a data destination is required to use incremental refresh, I suggest dimming / disabling that menu item until an oppropriate data destination (warehouse, Azure SQL db) is selected. Then, make incremental refresh selectable / enableable.

     

    Otherwise, it contradicts the documentation or causes confustion : I've enabled incremental refresh without selecting a data destination. Hence my question, is it doing anything ?