Automatic Data Refresh behavior on SSAS Tabular model

[tagoreb]

Hello

We have PBIX connected to SSAS Tabular model as Live Connection.  We have been observing that all dashboard queries are running in the background for each user who have access to the dashboard while the automatic data refresh is going on.

For example, we gave access to 100 users on the Model, Gateway and Workspace and all of these users are showing that they are running queries (though they are not accessing the dashboard during that time) and we found this in SQL Tracer and wanted to understand this.  

Is this an expecting behavior?  Did any one experiencing this issue?  Any performance degradation because of this behavior?  If possible, can any one share the documentation about the data refresh which runs automatically for Live connection.  I tried but could not get any.

Thanks in advance,

Ravi

[Anonymous]

Hi @tagoreb,

Do you share the dashboard to user via the following option or add your users in Power BI Group?


From my point of view, this is an expected behavior that all users you share dashboard with are running queries , because Power BI needs to refresh data for each user when there are changes in the dataset. Please help to describe more details about how you share the dashboard and I will test your scenario in my computer.

Besides, I am afraid that there are no official documentations about Automatic data refresh behavior on live connection.


Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[tagoreb]

Hi Lydia

Thank you for your time.

We add users as members to the workspace to give access to the dashboard and reports.

 

Thanks and Regards,

Ravi

[Anonymous]

Hi @tagoreb,

I am trying to test the scenario as yours, however, I get a different result on my side, please check the details in the following screenshot.  I added three users in Power BI group. Could you please share me the result of your SQL trace?






Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[tagoreb]

Hi Lydia

Please check the Query Begin Text Data and you will get the <effective user name> tag and you can see those queries triggered for those 3 users you added.  

Our expectation is that those queries should get triggered/seen only when the user login to PBI service and when try to access the dashboard.  However, with out user's interaction, while automatic data refresh is processing, we are seeing the query entries in Trace.

We have 100+ users added as members and hence you can see more Query Begin and End entries in the Trace.  Please find the below screen shot as requested.

[Anonymous]

Hi @tagoreb,

I have checked <effective user name> tag in each Query Begin Text Data. However, I am not able to reproduce your issue. In my SQL trace, those DAX queries get triggered only when the group members login to PBI service and access the dashboard. Also during the automatic data refresh process, the <effective user name>  is always me if the three group members don't access the shared dashabord and report.

How do you grant the group members access to gateway in Power BI Service? Do you embed the report in other application?

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[tagoreb]

Hi Lydia We used Workspace name in data source in gateway so that all members part of workspace will get access always. We did not embed the report in any other application. Thanks Ravi

[Anonymous]

Hi @tagoreb，

Have you applied Row Level Security(RLS) in your dataset? Based on my reserach, using RLS on a dashboard tile usually means the refresh of a tile requires one query per user,

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[tagoreb]

Hi Lydia

Yes, we have implemented RLS.  I understand that dashboard tile refreshes for each user but it should happen when the user logged in.  However, it is happening irrespective of whether user logged in or not while running the automatic data refresh.

This could be expected behaviour and will see whether the microsoft address this in near future.

Thanks

Ravi

[RahilBukhari]

Hi

Did removing the roles solve the issue? We're experiencing something similar, we have a number of dashboards and reports published to workspaces in PowerBI querying an on premise Tabular 2016 model and we can see a LOT of activity from PowerBI and I don't believe that majority of this is from end users. It looks like it's being triggered by Power BI.

We also had role level security but this has now been removed and i'm in the process of monitoring the server. Just wanted to see if anything else was discovered on this thread?

Thanks

Rahil