Semantic model refresh activity doesn't consider hidden tables

[Martin_Pachwald]

Hello,

I tried to select certain tables from my semantic model in the preview feature "semantic model refresh" activity in a pipeline.

However, it looks like that hidden tables are not considered to be refreshed at the moment.

Is it planned to change this behaviour or should I show all tables in the model?

[V-yubandi-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Martin_Pachwald ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Fabric Community.  Currently, hidden tables do not appear in the Semantic model refresh activity UI for Fabric pipelines, and therefore, they will not be refreshed unless explicitly added.

A straightforward workaround is to use dynamic content in the pipeline JSON to manually include the hidden tables, allowing you to refresh them without unhiding them in the model.

Created a semantic model with two tables  one visible, called VisibleTable, and one hidden, calledHiddenTable.

Then published the semantic model, created a Data Pipeline and added a Semantic model refresh activity in Data Factory for Microsoft Fabric (Preview) - Microsoft Fabric | ... selected the connection, workspace and semantic model; waited for the Table(s) dropdown to populate.

…and then, when it loaded, noted that only the visible table was shown in the dropdown.

I didn’t select anything and instead clicked “Add dynamic content” to use an expression to select the table instead.

Then in the Pipeline expression builder I entered the following.

@json('
    [
        {
            "table":"HiddenTable"
        }
    ]
')

After completing this task, ran the pipeline, and only the hidden table was refreshed.

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