There are core issues with dashboards tiles not updating when using the SSAS connector, even though the underlying reports update correctly after pressing the refresh button. These issues are interrelated and manifest differently with the iOS app, Android app and main website. I think the key cause is using dynamic time intelligence as a report filter, but secondarily with rebuilding the reports and repining the tiles.
I have setup the reports in the following manner:
- XYZ Client V4.1 Today
- XYZ Client V4.1 Yesterday
- XYZ Client V4.1 WTD
- XYZ Client V4.1 MTD
- XYZ Client V4.1 YTD
- XYZ Client V4.1 Last Month
- XYZ Client V4.1 Last Week
Each report has a DashBoard with the same name that have tiles pinned from the underlying report. All reports have a single Dataset using the latest SSAS connector. The main difference between the reports above is a report level filter using time intelligence within SSAS to create a dynamic filter. Eg XYZ Client V4.1 Today has a filter TODAY that is a dimension hierarchy on the main date time dimension for the tabular model. The TODAY hierarchy automatically calculates the date for the today and displays the data automatically. Similarly, XYZ Client V4.1 Yesterday does the same filtering for YESTERDAY and each report for their respective time period. The reason for this is so that users, especially using the mobile apps, can access the right report pre-filtered for the date period. The SSAS tabular model is fully reprocessed at the beginning of each day, and then partially reprocessed during the day for data updates. We are using Groups to display the reports to the right set of end users, and the users are members only to stop editing.
The problem is that the tiles do not automatically update once pinned and the behaviour is different depending upon the Power BI client used:
- Web client (main Power BI website) – reports update correctly if the refresh button pressed. Tiles DO NOT update unless the Dataset ‘refresh now’ option is manually clicked. The problem for the member only users is that the dataset is not visible, so they cannot initiate the refresh of the tiles, but can refresh the reports.
- Android app – the android app seems to be the best for mitigating the web client issue as the android app seems to mimic the dataset ‘refresh now’ when using the refresh option in the app. i.e. if the web site is updated using ‘refresh now’ then the android app is automatically updated, if you only use the android app, then refreshing within the app does update the specific report with 5 minutes. This means Android users such as myself are essentially ok, as the app triggers refreshing even for member only users in a group.
- iOS app – unlike the android app, the apple app does not seem to refresh the tiles at all. The only way the apple app updates is if the web site tiles are in a state to update, and then the iOS app updates as well. The issue is the as per point 1, is that member only users in a group cannot even trigger the ‘refresh now’ option themselves. The iOS refresh behaviour is definitely different than the android app as we have tested this in IT using example phones and user accounts. In simple terms, due to point 1, iOS Power BI users do not get updating dashboards, which means Power BI is useless to them
- currently, if I rebuild the reports with different visuals or filters, I delete the tiles from the corresponding Dashboard after renaming it with a new version number, and then repin the tiles. Once this has been done, it seems even android app users cannot refresh their dashboards until they have logged on to the PowerBI web site first. Then the android app will refresh if they manually refresh from the mobile app. This behaviour seems unfriendly, as you should be able to access updated dashboards in the most convenient client to you.
Overall to try to mitigate this behaviour, I have updated the SSAS connector and even restart it after the full SSAS reprocess. Nothing makes any difference to the behaviour described.
To provide a meaningful Power BI experience I suggest:
- change the iOS app refresh to behave in the same way as the android app refresh
- link the report refresh button to the dashboard tiles so that pressing the report refresh triggers the tiles to refresh in the same way as if ‘refresh now’ on the dataset has been clicked
- fix the backend so that the tiles refresh automatically regardless of manual refreshing. For example, allow a scheduled dataset ‘refresh now’ for SSAS datasets
Currently Power BI is not being used by many users as it simply is not consistently updating for them. I also cannot rollout to our external customers without a consistent refresh behaviour.
