Forum Discussion

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
7 years ago

Incremental Refresh based on loaded date or a custom column

Hi, I would like to set up incremental refresh based on "loaded date".   My data set does not have a date in it, so, I add a new column, and fill it using M in the query editor Loaded = DateTime....
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RN1's avatar
RN1
New Member
3 years ago

I had a very similar problem to this, no dates and no history on the actual files (all out of my control). One problem I ran into with the incremental refresh based on a 'Loaded = DateTime.LocalNow()' is that if you ever need to change the dataset for any reason your local now date is going to update and you're going to lose all of the history that was built up via the incremental refresh.

 

My solution was to instead get data from a folder location (where all of your files are stored - either saved and renamed manually or via some FTP/Macro/VBA/powershell script instead) and have the file names as the relevant dates.

 

Power BI: How to Combine Multiple Excel Files from a Folder - YouTube

 

I've not tested this yet but I think you should still be able to have this set as an incremental refresh on your dates from the file names and you still have the files to reference if your incremental ever fails.