Incremental refresh - deletion

Hi powerbiexpert22​ ,

Yes, your understanding is basically correct, with one clarification.

How "Detect data changes" works

• On each refresh, the service checks the MAX of your ModifiedDate column for each partition in the incremental range only. In your case that's 25–27 Oct 2026.
• If that value hasn't changed since the last refresh, the partition is skipped. If it has changed, the partition is reprocessed.
• Partitions in the archive range (1 Aug – 24 Oct 2026) are never checked and never reprocessed by a scheduled refresh. The policy treats them as stable. "Detect data changes" makes the incremental range cheaper to refresh. It doesn't extend coverage into history.

One clarification: "can never refresh" A scheduled refresh won't touch those partitions, but you can refresh them yourself without reloading the whole table:

1. Refresh specific partitions over the XMLA endpoint (SSMS, Tabular Editor or a TMSL script). Target only the affected month or day partition. Set applyRefreshPolicy: false if you refresh at table level and want the policy logic skipped.
2. Use the enhanced refresh REST API with an objects list naming the table and partition. You can run it from a pipeline, Power Automate or a notebook using semantic link.
3. Widen the incremental range, for example from 3 days to however late your corrections usually arrive. Combined with "Detect data changes", only the partitions that actually changed get reprocessed, so this is often the simplest fix.
   
   

Options 1 and 2 need Premium, PPU or Fabric capacity.

One thing to watch: partition your table on a stable business date, such as an order or transaction date, not on ModifiedDate. If you partition on ModifiedDate, an edited old row lands in today's partition while its old copy stays in the historical partition, and you get duplicates.

Deletes: as discussed in your other thread, deleted rows in historical partitions stay in the model until that partition is refreshed. So either use soft deletes (IsDeleted plus an updated ModifiedDate) within the incremental range, or run a periodic targeted refresh of the historical partitions, for example weekly or monthly via XMLA or REST.

Reference: Configure incremental refresh for Power BI semantic models - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Let me know. BBF