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v-dabatc
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

Dataset refresh missing

I'm missing the ability to refresh my dataset.  I have an existing dataset that connects to an Azure SQL database.  I created a new table and view in the database, but my dataset on this Power BI site does not show these new objects.  It seems I would need to refresh my connection to the database.  It would really be nice if the dataset would refresh automatically without any steps taken on my part, but I'm fine waiting for that feature to be developed.  

 

From the screenshots of datasets I see posted on this site, I should have a menu option that allows me to at least schedule a refresh.  I don't have any menu options for refreshing the dataset, and this is all I see:

 

DatasetRefreshIsMissing.png

 

Is there anything I can do to open up the ability to refresh my dataset?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
v-dabatc
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

Thanks for the quick response.  It turns out I did not have the ability to modifiy an existing dataset using this site, so I wound up deleting the existing dataset, and creating a new dataset, and only then did my new items appear.

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2 REPLIES 2
greggyb
Resident Rockstar
Resident Rockstar

Refresh is only an option for hosted data models. If you are using Direct Query, then there's no need to refresh, as the queries are fired off at report run-time against the source database.

 

Based on your screen shot I'd assume you're using Direct Query.

A Direct Query dataset has the included tables explicitly defined at dataset creation time. If you'd like to update the dataset to include more tables, you'll have to edit the dataset to include those tables. I'm not sure if there is a web interface for adding tables to a Direct Query dataset. You can certainly do so in the .pbix file.

The reasoning behind this is that a source database may have many more tables than are useful to expose in Power BI.

 

If you use a hosted data model (import data rather than live connection (SSAS) or Direct Query (SQL and similar sources)), then the only way to update the tables included is to edit the .pbix file. Only hosted data models have a refresh option, because the data is stored in the .pbix file itself, it must be refreshed against the source.

v-dabatc
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

Thanks for the quick response.  It turns out I did not have the ability to modifiy an existing dataset using this site, so I wound up deleting the existing dataset, and creating a new dataset, and only then did my new items appear.

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