Forum Discussion

nilimarodrigues's avatar
nilimarodrigues
Helper III
6 years ago

Incremental refresh with SAP BW datasource

Hi All,

 

I am trying to implement "Incremental Refresh" approach for Power BI dashboard based on SAP BW data source.

Our SAP BW system is based on a Non-HANA database. 

 

I applied the steps given below:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-premium-incremental-refresh#query-folding

 

however it looks like, for SAP BW, Query folding option is not available. Based on the reference link given above, its recommented not to use "Incremental Refresh" when query folding is not applicable.

 

Note that I have no custom columns or formulas added in my datasource but still I am seeing the above warning while setting up Incremental Refresh.

 

Has someone tried to perform "incremental refresh" with SAP BW as datasource? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

 

Need Help

12 Replies

  • GilbertQ's avatar
    GilbertQ
    Super User
    6 years ago
    Hi there

    What I would suggest is to make sure you do not use a custom query to query the data from your source.

    You would need to get the data via the navigation. This would then allow it to Query fold back to the source database?
    • nilimarodrigues's avatar
      nilimarodrigues
      Helper III
      6 years ago

      Hi GilbertQ 

       

      My dataset is not based on a custom query. I am simply utilising Power BI's SAP BW connector to connect to a BEx query. My dataset doesnt have a custom column or formula at all.

       

      Thanks.

       

       

       

      • GilbertQ's avatar
        GilbertQ
        Super User
        6 years ago
        Hi there

        And you can confirm that it has got the configuration correctly done for the table to be used?
    • nilimarodrigues's avatar
      nilimarodrigues
      Helper III
      6 years ago

      Hi v-xuding-msft ,

       

      As I mentioned in my original post, not having "Query Folding" on dataset is a problem for me.

       

      I tried to create one more test dataset based on SAP BW. Simply drag three fields - Posting Date, Amount and Currency Type.

      Now in SAP BW, posting date is of type "DATE" format but when the data is imported it comes up as "TEXT" format. The moment, I change the type from "TEXT" to "DATE", query folding is simply gone for my SAP BW based dataset.

       

      Incremental refresh ONLY works for date or date/time based fields as well as when "Query Folding" is possible.

      How am I supposed to achieve "Incremental refresh" when meeting both of these requirements is conflicting with each other?

       

      Thanks,

      Nilima

       

       

      • v-xuding-msft's avatar
        v-xuding-msft
        Community Support
        6 years ago

        Hi nilimarodrigues ,

        After researching, I find that many users encounter the problem of Query Folding broken when change data type from TEXT to DATE. I don't know if it is by design or it is a issue. I think you could create a support ticket to get an exact answer and get help about incremental refresh with SAP BW.

         

        Best Regards,

        Xue Ding

        If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

    • pacofq's avatar
      pacofq
      Advocate I
      5 years ago

      I have the exact same problem. Even though query folding seems enabled on my Bex BW query in PowerQuery, it seems that the incremental doesnt work because of the text data type on date fields from BW.

       

  • mahesh_powerbi's avatar
    mahesh_powerbi
    Frequent Visitor
    4 years ago

    I tried implementing incremental refresh manually using following steps.

     

    1. Import data till yesterday in Master Table. Disable its "load"
    2. Extract last_date from Master Table (in my case, it is yesterday's date) as a query.

    3. Use last_date query to import data till today in a New Table
    4. Append New Table to Master Table -> This where it throws Circular expression error

    Creating reference to Master Table and appending New Table to it removes the error. However, it doesn't update the last_date query. 
    Any help is highly appreciated. Thanks!
    GilbertQ v-xuding-msft luisDamyller pacofq nilimarodrigues