ALM toolkit deletes my partitions

[biuser98]

I have fact table which is configured to refresh incrementelly.

Since it is a large dataset, i have manually loaded the data for the partitions in SSMS.

My fact table got a new column, so I used ALM toolkit to detect the change and updated the change to the service.

I have used the following options:

Retain partitions - unchecked (since I need to pull the data from the source)

Process only affected tables checked.

Procces mode - Do not proces , because I want to process the partitions in SSMS in batch and not all partitions at once  (otherwise it will run ouf memory of gives an error)

I have updated the dataset with the new column, and when I went back to SSMS to see the partitions, all partitions got deleted and i got one partition with 0 rows (I lost all the data of the dataset for that fact table)

I need help, what am I doing wrong?

[Erokor]

I second @lbendlin however, there are some specific options you'll want to set when using ALM toolkit to make metadata only changes to prevent partitions from being wiped out - I use this often and the following is what I suggest:

[biuser98]

Thanks, one question: for table updates, retain refresh policy , should this be checked?

[Erokor]

This depends on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to do updates without refreshing the model/partitions - set the items appropriately. There is a ton of detailed information on GitHub, here

[biuser98]

can u explain further? Should I enable it for my dataset to not lose my partitions?

[Erokor]

for "Retain Refresh Policy" if you have a refresh policy set in the service, I would leave this checked or enable it. My understanding of the setting is that if there is a refresh policy on the Symantic Model (Dataset), it will be kept.

[lbendlin]

Retain partitions - unchecked (since I need to pull the data from the source)

That's your problem.  Should have checked that. 

It is generally easier to alter partitions from SSMS.

[biuser98]

I have checked it now. But how should I load in the data again if I may ask?

[lbendlin]

Make sure your partitions are provisioned/bootstrapped.

Use SSMS, Powershell or any other XMLA frontend to issue the partition refresh commands, one after the other.