Dataset refresh taking long time to complete the refresh

[Ynr225]

Hello All,

One of the user has created the Power BI report in Desktop using multiple data sources as Excel file(8 Excel files), Power platform dataflows, SQL server, web data sources and published the report in Power BI service. I am daily montoring the Fabric capacity usage metric app as a part of Fabric capacity management. When i see the usage report, this report is appearing in it and refresh time is taking 2 hours in Power BI service.

I scheduled meeting with user and discussed to move any database or Azure databricks instead using multiple excel files. For that he told the ETL team is designed in such a way that they are extracing the data and loading it to files and they are not ready to load the data in databases. As per my knowledge file based report performance is poor when compared to any database

Due to this capacity performance is degrading. Can any please suggest me how to reduce the refresh the time without changing the existing data sources in Power BI report.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @Ynr225 

I would just like to know when you mentioned it is degrading your capacity. Is this degrading your capacity for the refresh? If so, the refreshes are. sent to be smoothed over 24 hours, so that should not be a big impact. Possibly could it be that when users are using the report using high capacity usage, if that is the case, then you need to make sure that your model is designed with a star skimmer in mind and using optimized DAX measures to reduce the capacity consumption.

[Ynr225]

Hello @GilbertQ ,

Thanks for the reply, yes the capacity is degrading with the refresh. Due to this daily %Base capacity is consuming 18% and at the same time some others are using their reports with high capacity usage. Because of this our capacity is reaching 150%. So we want to reduce the refresh time without changing the existing data sources in Power BI report.

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ynr225 

I would recommend looking at the star schema and semantic model as this is contributing to you going over your interactive capacity usage.

[v-aatheeque]

Hi @Ynr225 ,
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[BhavinVyas3003]

Try these steps:

• Use Incremental Refresh to load only new data.
• Clean Power Query steps – remove extra columns and filters early.
• Shift heavy data steps to Dataflows if possible.
• Turn off Auto Date/Time for date columns.
• Ask ETL team to reduce Excel file size if they can.
• Set refresh time during non-busy hours.