Hi @Anonymous ,
In Power BI Desktop or the Power BI service, you can connect to many different data sources in different ways. You can import data to Power BI, which is the most common way to get data. You can also connect directly to some data in its original source repository, which is called DirectQuery.
Connecting with DirectQuery can be useful in the following scenarios. In several of these cases, leaving the data in its original source location is necessary or beneficial.
DirectQuery in Power BI offers the greatest benefits in the following scenarios:
- The data changes frequently, and you need near real-time reporting.
- You need to handle large data without having to pre-aggregate.
- The underlying source defines and applies security rules.
- Data sovereignty restrictions apply.
- The source is a multidimensional source containing measures, such as SAP BW.
You can refresh models with imported data at most once per hour, more frequently with Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium subscriptions. If the data is continually changing, and it's necessary for reports to show the latest data, using import with scheduled refresh might not meet your needs. You can stream data directly into Power BI, although there are limits on the data volumes supported for this case.
Using DirectQuery means that opening or refreshing a report or dashboard always shows the latest data in the source. The dashboard tiles can also be updated more frequently, as often as every 15 minutes.
If the data is very large, it's not feasible to import all of it. DirectQuery requires no large transfer of data, because it queries data in place.
For more details, you can read related document: Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn, DirectQuery in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Best regards,
Community Support Team_Binbin Yu
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