Does Dataverse Enable My PBI Service Report to Auto Refresh?

[maibacherstr]

Hello community, just a straightforward question: by connecting a report to Dataverse as its source, can the data in my published report auto refresh when the browser window refreshes?

If not, what would be the easiest method to achieve this when Dataverse is used?

Thank you!

[otravers · Accepted solution]

Refreshing the browser window doesn't refresh the underlying dataset in Import mode, just the visuals. You can use DirectQuery with Dataverse, in which case you can get the visuals to auto refresh periodically (meaning there's no need to manually refresh the browser) but bear in mind that DirectQuery can be slow.

Here's the relevant documentation:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-automatic-page-refresh

[maibacherstr]

Thank you very much! Now that I tried this out with my first directquery connection ever (have only been a developer for almost four years), I just have a straight DQ question: whereas I used to write my DAX columns and measures in the desktop (cached/import connection), am I now supposed to write all DAX into Dataverse calculated fields??

Many thanks for clearly answering my question up front. Double kudos if you can answer this follow-up.

[otravers]

To the extent the logic in your DAX columns is easy to replicate in Dataverse, I'd favor leveraging  the latter as it might perform better. The larger the dataset the more it's recommended to avoid DAX calculated columns and move the necessary transformations upstream (Dataverse in your case).

That said I can't vouch for Dataverse performance with calculated fields, I've only used Dataverse cursorily. With a "regular" SQL server I'd go with creating the columns in SQL views for sure.

[maibacherstr]

Awesome, I really appreciate the sanity check here. Good thing I'm studying for the PL-200 exam and should be able to figure out those calculated fields -- as mentioned I've never put my hands on DV or DQ until very recently.

Thanks again.