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asparagus1_'s avatar
asparagus1_
Helper I
5 months ago
Solved

Aml toolkit - schema changes - retain partitons

Hi, I have a question about incremental refresh in Power BI.

I’m changing the data source for a table with incremental refresh enabled. Previously it was a view, now it’s now a table (same object, but converted), and column names have changed.

How will this impact existing partitions in Power BI Service when deploying via ALM Toolkit with retain partitions enabled?
Will partitions be preserved, or will the schema change force a rebuild?

Also, in this scenario, would it be safer or better to handle the change using Tabular Editor instead? I would like to avoid reprocessing. 

Thanks in advance!

Need Help
  • Natarajan_M's avatar
    Natarajan_M
    5 months ago

    Hi asparagus1_ , 

    ALM Toolkit with Retain Partitions: Partitions will be structurally preserved during deployment, but the column name changes mean the next refresh will fail — the existing partition queries still reference the old column names and won't auto-remap.

    Even with Tabular Editor, you can't make changes without affecting the existing partitions.

    Thanks 


3 Replies

  • Natarajan_M's avatar
    Natarajan_M
    Super User
    5 months ago

    Hi asparagus1_ , 

    ALM Toolkit with Retain Partitions: Partitions will be structurally preserved during deployment, but the column name changes mean the next refresh will fail — the existing partition queries still reference the old column names and won't auto-remap.

    Even with Tabular Editor, you can't make changes without affecting the existing partitions.

    Thanks 


    • asparagus1_'s avatar
      asparagus1_
      Helper I
      5 months ago

      Thank you. So what is recommended in this case? Should I disable this option and reload all partitions? Will that work properly?

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    4 months ago

    Hi asparagus1_,

     

    Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Fabric Forum Community, and special thanks to Natarajan_M  for prompt and helpful responses.

     

    Since your column names have changed, this counts as a schema change, so existing partitions won’t be retained anyway. Even if you keep “Retain partitions” enabled in ALM Toolkit, the partitions will be dropped and recreated during deployment. So the safest and simplest approach is to disable that option and allow a full refresh this ensures a clean deployment without any inconsistencies. After that one time refresh, your incremental refresh will continue to work normally going forward.

     

    Thanks & Regards,

    Prasanna Kumar