Forum Discussion
Incremental Refresh with Power BI Pro License
Hii Khushboobarai
Your current setup (multiple folders + append + main query) is the reason incremental refresh is not working. Incremental refresh only works when a single table has a proper Date column filtered using RangeStart/RangeEnd with query folding folder-based appends usually break this.
In your case, since you don’t want to change the main model, the best approach is:
- Create a separate staging query that directly reads only recent files (last 1–2 days) using a date filter
- Apply incremental refresh on that staging table
- Then append this small “recent data” into your existing model
This way, you avoid touching your main logic, reduce refresh time, and still get near-incremental behavior.
Hi Khushboobarai,
Thank you for confirming that the issue remains unresolved.
As previously mentioned, combining multiple folders with append is likely causing incremental refresh to fail, since it disrupts query folding.
If you prefer not to change your main query, you can try this approach:
Create a separate staging query that connects only to the latest data (2026 folders: f1cd, f2cd, f3cd)
Apply RangeStart and RangeEnd filters to a suitable Date/DateTime column in Power Query
Enable incremental refresh on this staging query (refresh the last 1–2 days)
Append this staging query to your main query
This should help reduce refresh time without affecting your model.
Also, please check:
The date column is in Date/DateTime format
Filters are applied in Power Query, not DAX
Use “View Native Query” to verify query folding
Alternative
If your source doesn’t support query folding, you can filter files by last modified date (last 1–2 days) in Power Query as a workaround.
Thank you.