Custom Refresh Mail

[Jessica_17]

Hello All,

I need some help with a Power BI scenario.

I have a PBIX file where multiple Excel files (specifically one sheet from each file) are combined into a single table. The dashboard refresh is scheduled to run on specific custom days.

The requirement from the user is: if the refresh fails—whether it is triggered manually by the user or during the scheduled refresh—they should receive an email notification explaining the reason for the failure.

If the error is related to the Excel files, they will try to fix it themselves. Otherwise, they will reach out to me for support.

However, I cannot use any premium connectors.

Is there any way to capture the refresh failure details and automatically send an email with the error information in this scenario?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @Jessica_17 

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

Thank you.

[vojtechsima]

Hey, @Jessica_17 ,

I assume it's on PBI Service. Any failure of the refresh goes to the users inside the specified list.

The email body always contains the error message, if you wanna hook it to the Power Automate, you can just send to your mailbox, write some parser to determine the tables in errors and then decide to send email to you or them.

All of this should be free.

The template of the title is:
Refresh failed: {Report Name} has failed to refresh

From: no-reply-powerbi@microsoft.com

[lbendlin]

If you cannot use Premium connectors you would need to run a polling Powershell script at a reasonable interval (say, every 15 minutes, via Task Scheduler)  and use the REST API to retrieve the refresh status of the most recent refresh.  The script would then have to parse the result JSON and decide if a notification is required.

This implies that the Powershell script can run in unattended mode which comes with its own considerations (the need for an Azure App registration, for example).

whether it is triggered manually by the user

You should not allow report users to trigger refresh requests. That will quickly get you an invitation into the 429 club, or worse.

[Jessica_17]

HI @lbendlin ,

There are only two users who will be refreshing it, but they might do so at any time. Given that, is there any other workaround that could make this possible?

[lbendlin]

Yes - before issuing a refresh request you would need to probe if a refresh is currently in progress or if one was recently completed. In those scenarios the request should be denied.