Forum Discussion

schoden's avatar
schoden
Post Partisan
6 years ago

Incremental Refresh

Hi Community, 

 

Would appreciate if anyone can share their knowledge on incremental refresh. My main purpose/goal was to obtain a live streaming data , as mentioned in forums : which can be achieved by API via powershell or either microsoft flow trigggered SQL. 

Both I couldnt obtain desired results so I resorted to incremental refresh.  I have Pro Power BI PRO  license.

The report was set with parameter from the desktop , published it on service.

 

Doubt: 

1. Report dataset is now scheduled with 5 times refresh- done manually from the service, but dataflow related to the dataset is a day old data as refresh schedule is set once a day PURPOSELY not to  stress the datasource as its live datasource. 

 

As Pro license I cant incremental refresh dataflow , it requires Premium, What is the best work around suggested ? 

 

Would help me al

 

 

9 Replies

    • schoden's avatar
      schoden
      Post Partisan

      Anonymous   

      Hi , 

      For Pro licence, the incremental refresh is available only in desktop and dataset in service.

      But dataflow related to those dataset can't be incremented for refresh, it needs premium license.

       

  • swise001's avatar
    swise001
    Continued Contributor

    schoden 

     

    Would it be possible to create a second dataflow that 'acts' as an incremental refresh - without using the incremental refresh setting (which is reserved for Premium)?  In this second dataflow - you could toggle the queries to only bring in data from the current day (or whatever your window is).  Then set the dataflow to refresh shortly before your incremental refresh kicks off on your dataset. 

     

    You'll still need to append the data from both dataflows - but perhaps the smaller dataflow won't strain the source system as much.  If you are concerned about this - it's worth doing some testing to try and see how much 'stress' these refreshes will put on it.  

     

     

    • schoden's avatar
      schoden
      Post Partisan

      Hi swise001 , 

       

      I am thinking about your solution but I am not able to make sense because even if second dataflow with just current day data, the refresh can be at max of  8 times a day only.  The report with incremental fresh picks automatically when data changes - so there is not particular timing for  datafresh , which is what need as data changes from the source every minute. But ultimately as it depends on the dataflow , only it will show data changed 8 times only. 

       

      *When you say ***Then set the dataflow to refresh shortly before your incremental refresh kicks off on your dataset*** , does it mean that dataflow refreshing once, at a particular time will do the work ?

      • swise001's avatar
        swise001
        Continued Contributor

        schoden 

         

        Based on your addition description - there will be some limitations (as you noted). 

        1.  Pro datasets are limited to 8 refreshes for imported models.  This limitation will apply to your dataflows and datasets, including your incremental refresh dataset.   The idea that your incremental refresh is running more than 8 times a day - runs counter to those known limits with Pro datasets.    Detect data changes - means that that upon a refresh - incremental refresh will only import changed data - but will not be querying the datasource every minute to check.   That level of "near real-time" reporting is typically achieved with direct query datasets or composite models.  

         

        2.  When a dataflow is used by a dataset - the refresh timings of the two objects are set independently.  So if you want your dataflow to contain updated data - it should be refreshed prior to your dataset - so that new data is staged in the dataflow, prior to it being imported into the dataset.