How to achieve "Instant Refresh" in reports connected to another Semantic Model?

[Ramkishor]

Hi all,

I have a setup where I’ve built 3 Power BI reports that use a central "Source" Semantic Model as their data source (Direct Query).

The Issue: When the source semantic model is refreshed, the data in the three reports only updates after about 1 hour. Even though the data is technically "ready" in the source, the reports seem to be waiting on their own refresh frequency.

I’ve noticed that the lowest setting for "Automatic DashBoard Tile and Goal Refresh" is 15 minutes, but I need the data to reflect immediately after the source refresh finishes.

FYI - All the reports are running on a Fabric F2 Capacity.

My Questions:

1. If I refresh the browser tab immediately after the source model finishes, will I see the latest data, or does the report still rely on the refresh frequency?

2. Is there a way to trigger the "Automatic DashBoard Tile and Goal Refresh" automatically as soon as the Source Model finishes?

3. What is the performance impact if I reduce the frequency to the minimum?

Looking forward to hearing how you all handle this type of reporting in Fabric!

[Olufemi7 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Ramkishor,
The dashboard tile refresh option is mostly for dashboard tiles/goals and not for the report visuals themselves.
Your reports are using DirectQuery to another semantic model, so normally once the source model refresh finishes, refreshing the report page should bring in the latest data.
If the delay continues, this could be related to caching, aggregations, or F2 capacity load.

Docs: 
Use composite models in Power BI 
Data refresh in Power BI 

[Shai_Karmani]

The 1-hour delay is typical for composite models built on top of another Power BI semantic model with DirectQuery. The downstream model caches the upstream metadata for about an hour, so new source data does not show up until that cache clears or the downstream model is refreshed.

A browser refresh will not bypass this. Two options usually fix it. Trigger a refresh on the downstream semantic model right after the source refresh completes (Power Automate, Fabric pipeline, or the REST API). Or switch the three reports to a live connection straight to the source semantic model rather than a composite model. Live connected thin reports query the source at runtime, so the latest data is visible as soon as the source finishes refreshing.

The "Automatic Dashboard Tile and Goal Refresh" setting only affects dashboards, not report visuals, so changing it will not help your reports. Reducing it has a small capacity cost on F2 but it is not actually solving the issue.

So as a solution if this  was me,I would trigger a refresh downstream using a copy pipeline. That probably would be the easiest quickest way achieve what you want.

If this helped, a thumbs up and accepting the solution would be appreciated.

Best,
Shai Karmani

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