When Does Cache Refresh Happen w SSAS?

[Anonymous]

Hi all. I found an article that describes direct connections(SSAS for example). I had a question on some things. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/refresh-data#live-connections-and-directquery-to-on-premis...

It says the database updates the visual when “you interact with a visual”. What defines interacting with a visual? Do I need to full-screen it or just open up the dashboard containing the visuals?

Also, I have the understanding that this doesn’t apply to the actual report. In PBIRS when does the data refresh for the report? Every cache refresh cycle(whatever it’s set at) or something else?

Any other information you think is necessary would be appreciated as well.

[Anonymous]

Your link is for the Power BI Service (e.g. hosted in Azure) rather than the on-prem Report Server, so disregard that post.

For connecting the SSAS databases you have two choices, import or connect live. Import will bring that data into the database supporting your Report Server instance. Connect live will connect directly to your SSAS instance.

If choosing import, you will need to setup a data refresh to refresh the data imported into your Report Server instance.

For both options, bear in mind you need to refresh the SSAS instance. We achieve this by issuing an SSAS command at the end of our ETL routines (orchestrated by the SQL agent) which refresh the relevant areas of SSAS.

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much. To clarify, using a live connection to SSAS there's no way to access cached data, correct? I'm trying to understand if there's some way of using SSAS live connection without querying the SSAS database every time a user views a report.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

No problem. No with a live connection the report will always go to the SSAS database. Of course you could set your models to run in memory in the SSAS server and they will be quick to respond.

Hope this helps.

[Jon-Heide]

There's two modes, direct query and cached, depending on how you authored the report. 

Direct query, queries your back end data source with every query or interaction with the report (e.g. every click). Cached, uses a copy of the data stored locally and is refreshed by the refresh plan you setup on the server. 

[Anonymous]

Does “every click” include loading a dashboard?