API Call - Help with "Add Cache Refresh Plan"

[z-rmo]

I'd like to be able to programmatically create a Cache Refresh Plan attached to a particular report hosted on our Report Server.

I can manually create a plan under "Scheduled refresh" when I manage the report via the Report Server web portal.

I have found documentation for the API here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi-report/cache-refresh-plans/add-cache-refresh-pla... ... However, there doesn't seem to be a sample body or template which I can model my own API call, and I don't seem to be able to catch the call in my browser network-watch dev tool . I have successfully done a few other API commands, like deleting and adding Power BI Reports.

Is there a location I can look for more thorough documentation, or can someone provide me with a sample?

[rohit1991]

Hi @z-rmo ,

The docs are a bit lacking when it comes to real-world examples for the "Add Cache Refresh Plan" call. I ran into this myself and here’s what actually worked for me:

1. Use the official SwaggerHub for PBIRS: It’s much more helpful than the standard docs, and you can see exactly what the body should look like.

2. Sample JSON payload: When you create a scheduled refresh via the Report Server portal, the API call looks like this (you can check using browser dev tools):

{
  "Owner": null,
  "Description": "Your description here",
  "CatalogItemPath": "/your/path/to/report",
  "EventType": "DataModelRefresh",
  "Schedule": {
    "ScheduleID": null,
    "Definition": {
      "StartDateTime": "2025-07-01T04:00:00+10:00",
      "EndDateSpecified": false,
      "EndDate": "1981-02-01T00:00:00+10:00",
      "Recurrence": {
        "DailyRecurrence": {
          "DaysInterval": 1
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "ScheduleDescription": "",
  "ParameterValues": []
}

Heads up: Leave ScheduleID as null or just omit it. Make sure CatalogItemPath matches your report’s path exactly.

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure why they moved away from using SwaggerHub for documentation, but the docs there still have an example of how to call this api https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/microsoft-rs/PBIRS/2.0#/CacheRefreshPlans/AddCacheRefreshPlan And when I use the browser tools in Edge it captures the POST call to create a cache refresh plan.

Below is an example I captured when creating a scheduled refresh for my Power BI report called "local Adv Works"

{
	"Owner": null,
	"Description": "test2",
	"CatalogItemPath": "/local Adv Wrks",
	"EventType": "DataModelRefresh",
	"Schedule": {
		"ScheduleID": null,
		"Definition": {
			"StartDateTime": "2025-07-01T04:00:00+10:00",
			"EndDateSpecified": false,
			"EndDate": "1901-02-01T00:00:00+10:00",
			"Recurrence": {
				"DailyRecurrence": {
					"DaysInterval": 1
				}
			}
		}
	},
	"ScheduleDescription": "",
	"ParameterValues": []
}

[z-rmo]

Thank you for the Swagger link and the message body example! The Swagger will be a useful resource going forward--until Microsoft releases a new version of the API, I suppose.

Turns out that I was close, having modeled a JSON object from a GET response. However, I was providing a null "ID" value which was not wanted by the server for the POST.

[z-rmo]

I am using Power BI Report Server (January 2025), version 1.22.9153.7886.