How to Configure Power BI Incremental Refresh for Custom Fiscal Year (Feb–Jan)?

[Santosh-738]

Hi Microsoft Community,

I'm working with a Power BI dataset that uses incremental refresh, and I need help configuring it to align with our custom fiscal year, which runs from February 1st to January 31st (e.g., FY24 = Feb 1, 2023 – Jan 31, 2024).

By default, Power BI creates partitions based on the calendar year or month, depending on the granularity, but I want to:

• Set up partitions that align with fiscal years (Feb–Jan) rather than calendar years

• Ensure that the refresh behavior properly reflects this custom fiscal calendar

• Optionally rename or manage partitions so they follow our fiscal naming (e.g., "FY24", "FY25", etc.)

I’ve already implemented incremental refresh and understand how to modify partitions using Tabular Editor and XMLA endpoints, but modifying the partition ranges manually causes issues (e.g., invalid granularity combinations).

Is there a recommended or supported way to:

1. Define custom partitioning that follows a fiscal year (Feb–Jan)?

2. Align Power BI’s refresh logic and partition boundaries with this fiscal calendar?

3. Maintain compatibility with incremental refresh policies while using custom ranges?

Please refer the following snapshot for your reference:

Any documentation, best practices, or DAX/M or tooling suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[v-lgarikapat]

Hi @Santosh-738 ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

@lbendlin 

Thanks for your prompt response

@Santosh-738 ,

I wanted to follow up and confirm whether you’ve had a chance to review the information  shared by @lbendlin ,If you have any questions or need further clarification, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

If you're still encountering any challenges, feel free to let us know we’d be glad to assist you further.

Looking forward to your response.

Best regards,
Lakshmi

[Santosh-738]

Hi @v-lgarikapat,

Yes, I’ve reviewed the information shared by @lbendlin  — thank you both for the support.

However, it doesn’t fully address our use case. We’ve explored multiple options using the regular calendar year (based on months and days), but unfortunately, it doesn’t align with the specific windows required for our custom fiscal year implementation.

Appreciate any further guidance or alternatives you might suggest.

Thanks,
Santosh

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

It doesn't need to align. Trust the service to do their thing.

[lbendlin]

Incremental Refresh only works with regular calendar dates for the partitions.  You can do all kinds of gymnastics to work around that (you listed some of the options) but the simplest approach is to go with that regular calendar and ignore your fiscal year boundaries. The result will still be the same especially if you start with monthly partitions (or daily). 

In your fact table you should already have a regular calendar date. If not, create one.  Then set RangeStart and RangeEnd against that date. Trust the service to do its job.

[v-lgarikapat]

HI @Santosh-738 ,

We haven’t heard back from you regarding our last response, so I just wanted to check in to see if you were able to resolve the issue. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Lakshmi

[v-lgarikapat]

Hi @Santosh-738 ,

We haven’t heard back from you regarding our last response, so I just wanted to check in to see if you were able to resolve the issue. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Lakshmi