Stop Power Query from refreshing

[UBComma]

I imported a couple of dozen tables from two large PDF documents and spent a few days cleaning up the data. Power Query wants to continue refreshing the data but there's no reason to do this since it's a static PDF data source that will not be updated. I know I can right-mouse on the table name and unselect "Include in report refresh" but it's pretty tedious. Is there a way to do this across many tables, or a master setting somewhere? I'm hoping I don't have to do this one table at a time.

[BA_Pete · Accepted solution]

Hi @UBComma ,

Power BI isn't a data warehouse/data store, so there's no 'easy' way to do this - it's just not designed to be able to.

Whilst you could go through the process of hitting the 'Include...refresh' toggle, I think you'll find that this is ignored once you publish to the Service.

The only thing I can think of, depending on how large your PDF sources are, is to use the 'Enter Data' function in PQ to fix your sources as JSON binaries within the M code. You can paste 3,000 cells into one 'Enter Data' table or, if you can convert your files to CSVs, you can paste in 3,000 CSV rows.

Pete

[BA_Pete · Accepted solution]

For the benefit of future readers:

My current recommendation would be to import and transform any data that you wish to remain static into Dataflows in the PBI Service. Once done, you never need to refresh the Dataflow again, but this static source will remain available to all reports in future.

Pete

[UBComma]

@BA_Pete - I could not agree more. At the time I posted this question I was not familiar with creating dataflow but now I use them regularly. Dataflows are awesome and completely solve this issue.

[BA_Pete · Accepted solution]

Hi @UBComma ,

Power BI isn't a data warehouse/data store, so there's no 'easy' way to do this - it's just not designed to be able to.

Whilst you could go through the process of hitting the 'Include...refresh' toggle, I think you'll find that this is ignored once you publish to the Service.

The only thing I can think of, depending on how large your PDF sources are, is to use the 'Enter Data' function in PQ to fix your sources as JSON binaries within the M code. You can paste 3,000 cells into one 'Enter Data' table or, if you can convert your files to CSVs, you can paste in 3,000 CSV rows.

Pete

[UBComma]

Pete,

Thank you for your reply. It seems that's my only option so I'll give that a go. I appreciate your help!