Data Refresh from Paid API

[Anonymous]

I'm working on a report that pulls data from a Paid API service, and need some help making sure that I don't over-pay for the data.

I can't tell, but  it seems to me that Power BI might be calling the service twice when I test it. It calls once to pull data into the preview page in Power Query, and then it calls again when I hit "Close & Apply" to load it all into the report builder.

Is anyone able to provide some insights into this workflow to help me limit double-paying?

For example, with a 5,000 row query, does the desktop tool:

1. Call 1,000 rows as a preview, and then call the full 5,000 after close/apply? (= two calls)
2. Call 5,000 rows upfront for the preview, and then load them all at once? (= one calls)
3. Call 5,000 rows upfront for the preview, then refresh and call 5,000 again? (= two  large calls)
   -> if it's this one, can I mitigate the issue by unchecking 'include in report refresh'?

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

[v-yuta-msft]

@Anonymous ,

Loading data twice is normal. Power bi will load the data into data model in power query in the first time. After some data pretreatment, power bi will load the data into data view in the second time.

If you mean how to reduce the loading time and enhance the performance in power bi, I would suggest you to refer to tips of how to improve power bi performance below:

https://blog.pragmaticworks.com/power-bi-performance-tips-and-techniques

Community Support Team _ Jimmy Tao

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

[Sjohnson]

Thanks for the response @v-yuta-msft !

I understand that the data loads twice, but do you know if it calls the API twice? Or does it just call once and load twice?

[v-yuta-msft · Accepted solution]

@Sjohnson ,

The api will only be called in power query for one time. 

Regards,

Jimmy Tao

[Sjohnson]

Million dollar answer, thanks Jimmy!