Migrating AAS models to Power BI Fabric / Capacity - setup incremental refresh post migration?

[tbyberg]

I am migrating just 4 AAS models to power bi fabric capacity.

Post AAS migration, we end up with semantic models for each.  They seem to work fine and the data refreshes fine.  source is azure sql for each model.

I can use tabular editor  or visual studio to manage changes to these models.  that seems to work fine.

However, if i want to setup incremental refresh on tables in these models, i believe i need to have a pbix of each model to set it up.

The service did let me download the semantic models to pbix files -- however, that contained all the data in each model -- can get very large.

Also -- none of these would open up in desktop for me.  I get a couple errors. 

and 

the same error for each of the 4 models.

I found an article to convert from a bim to pbix, and i tried that (which uses pbi-tools).
https://data-goblins.com/power-bi/download-pbix

However, the resulting pbix from this process still gets the same errors when trying to open it in desktop.   

Maybe its something related to AAS live connection but need to switch to a direct query?   

If so, i am not sure how to adjust the converted semantic models to direct query model.

Semantic models post migration are just straight pull from SQL source

I don't see any issues with the models as they are usable in reporting and working fine

However, maybe there is something in the models that could be causing issues just for this specific usage.

Has anyone run into this issue before or have ideas on how to get incremental refresh setup for semantic models that were migrated from AAS models?   

[lbendlin]

You are mixing concepts liberally.  Incremental refresh only works with Import Mode data sources  (with the small footnote that the "hot" partition can be direct query).

You can use Tabular Editor to modify the partition rules if you like, and to retrieve the meta data without downloading the pbix. 

Maybe you can describe a bit more detailed what you are trying to accomplish?

[tbyberg]

When the datasets were in AAS, we were updating only recent partitions of the tables into the AAS model.
Reports were a live connection against AAS model.
After migration to power bi, i am assuming the power bi semantic model needs refreshing somehow to get the new updated data. 

After migration - if i just manually refresh the semantic model or put it on a refresh schedule -- i am not really sure what partitions are being updated, or if it is always a full refresh going that route?

If i do not want a full refresh every time, what are my options?

I am not too familiar with tabular editor -  i know we can manage partitions in there, but that doesn't drive what partitions get refreshed in the service does it?

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

Here's one of the ways 

Enhanced refresh with the Power BI REST API - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

In general partition management in semantic models is very much the same as it is in SSAS. You can issue your XMLA queries from whichever client you prefer (SSMS, PowerShell, Power Automate etc)

[tbyberg]

Thanks,

Yes, it does look the same.

We are utilizing a logic app to refresh specific partitions for the AAS models.

Those processes could easily be converted to use the xmla endpoint. 

I was looking to utilize the more automated partition management via the incremental refresh you can setup in desktop.

However, I do see you can set something similar up using tabular editor.

https://docs.tabulareditor.com/te3/tutorials/incremental-refresh/incremental-refresh-setup.html

I'm new to tabular editor and look forward to utilizing that tool going forward.

thanks again