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Sivakumar2

Automatic Refresh of Semantic Model After Republishing to Power BI Service

Submitted by on ‎03-31-2026 08:07 AM

We have been observing that Power BI semantic models are automatically triggering a refresh immediately after being republished to the Power BI Service. In the refresh history, this is tagged as "On-demand", even though no manual action was performed.

Upon reaching out to Microsoft, we received the following confirmation:

“This is the expected behavior from the Power BI Service once a semantic model is republished. The behavior is by design and applies to all semantic models in Import mode (or those using auto-aggregations). This behavior has been consistent for several years, and there are currently no plans to change it in the product roadmap.”

 

While this behavior can be beneficial in certain scenarios—particularly for smaller models that complete refreshes within seconds—it introduces challenges in the following cases:

Incremental Refresh Models: 
In some situations, the refresh may process more data than expected, leading to longer execution times.
Large or Complex Models:
Models with sizes exceeding 5–10 GB or with high complexity may require several minutes to refresh, increasing resource consumption.

 

This behavior can significantly impact capacity resources, especially in Fabric capacity-enabled workspaces, where such unintended refresh activity may lead to unnecessary resource utilization and potential performance issues.

 

It would be highly beneficial if this behavior could be controlled at the user level or at least at the tenant level, allowing organizations to prevent unintended refreshes and better manage capacity consumption.

Status: New
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3 Comments (3 New)
Comments
Cmailloux
Regular Visitor
‎04-17-2026 11:20 AM
Not to mention 99% of the times I'm publishing a desktop copy, I've already refreshed the data set on my end before clicking publish. At a bare minimum, Power BI web should check when the data set was last refreshed, and only refresh it again post-publishing if it's more than X hours old (24hrs?)
Sivakumar2
Regular Visitor
‎04-19-2026 11:59 PM
@Cmailloux, That is a good point. However, in some cases, the Power BI Service requires data source authentication independently. Even if authentication is configured in Power BI Desktop before publishing, Desktop operates as a standalone application. When the model is published, the authentication details may not always be carried over to the Power BI Service. As a result, the Service may require data source authentication to be configured again. Until this is completed, the Service may not validate the latest refresh status or data accuracy and may continue to display the data as it was at the time of publishing from Power BI Desktop.
andyclap
Advocate IV
Advocate IV
‎04-23-2026 08:34 AM

I've had this problem for a while

 

- Just clarify the process here.

 

  • It seems that if a report has a refresh schedule, uploading a new version publishes that version and causes a refresh.
  • If a report doens't have a refresh schedule, uploading a new version publishes that version and you have to refresh manually on the service.

 

Ideally I want an option on a report when publishing that allows 

  • Uploading a new version doesn't publish that version yet, but starts a refresh and publishes the new version once it has refreshed.