query references other queries or steps, so it may not directly access a data

[Macc-PA]

Hi,

We distribute Power BI Reports as templates to our customers.

When they open the template and provide the Odata url and credentials, the data starts to refresh and we get the 'query ... references other queries or steps, so it may not directly access a data source. Please rebuild this data combination' on some of our tables where we have merges, however not all tables where a merge is perfomed.

All the queries access the same odata source.

Upto now the solution has been to open power query and perform a refresh all and save and close. The data in the report refresh without error.

This is now becoming an issue, why is this happening when we only have the one data source and how can we stop it without having to ask to set the privacy settings to None.

Thanks

[Adamboer]

The issue you are experiencing with the Power BI report templates is most likely related to the privacy settings of the data sources. By default, Power BI applies a "Combine data according to your privacy levels" setting which can cause queries to fail when there are privacy differences between the data sources.

To resolve this issue, you can try changing the privacy level settings in Power BI. To do this, go to "File" -> "Options and settings" -> "Data source settings" -> "Global permissions". Here, you can set the privacy level for your data sources to "None" to ensure that queries can access all data sources without restrictions.

Alternatively, you can modify the queries in Power Query Editor to remove any references to other queries or steps that may be causing the issue. This will ensure that all queries in the report are referencing the same data source and should reduce the likelihood of encountering this error message.

I hope this helps!

[Macc-PA]

Hi,

Thanks for that but  why doing a 'Refresh Preview' -> 'Refresh Preview All ' in PQ then allows the tables to load without errors

[Bilbo_777]

Agree Macc...
See also Solved: Query references other queries or steps, so it may... - Microsoft Fabric Community - it's not solved!! It's intermittent and I've not seen a good answer as to why refreshing the queries, sorts it out (for a bit...).

[Macc-PA]

Hi,

Anyone have any thoughts on why doing a refresh all in Power Query then allows us to refresh the data in report?

Thanks