Forum Discussion
Power Automate Dataset Refresh, Last Refresh Date
a Power Automate button that refreshes the Dataset when clicked.
No, it doesn't. All it does is request a dataset refresh. There is no guarantee that the request will be honored, and no guarantee as to long it will take or if it will be successful.
I want to have a "Last Refreshed" date/time stamp to let the user know how fresh their data is
That's the right idea but the wrong approach. Ignore all the dataset refresh stuff. Find a data point in your actual date (for example "Latest order date") and use that to indicate the freshness of the data.
All the other timestamps are pointless at best and misleading at worst.
- JBorja2 years agoFrequent Visitor
No, it doesn't. All it does is request a dataset refresh. There is no guarantee that the request will be honored, and no guarantee as to long it will take or if it will be successful.
If the dataset in the workspace shows the refresh timestamp as the time of the button click, that indicates a successful refresh, right? If so, the button has been operating as intended. Part of my intention with the timestamp is to indicate such failed requests.
That's the right idea but the wrong approach. Ignore all the dataset refresh stuff. Find a data point in your actual date (for example "Latest order date") and use that to indicate the freshness of the data.
All the other timestamps are pointless at best and misleading at worst.
The dataset doesn't contain any such dates.
I appreciate your advice on best practices, and I'll likely implement them in future practices, but I'd really just like to know if there's an equivalent solution to having the query for DateTime.LocalNow() that updates the timestamp when the "Refresh" button is used in Power BI Desktop.
- lbendlin2 years agoSuper User
If the dataset in the workspace shows the refresh timestamp as the time of the button click, that indicates a successful refresh, right?No, that's just showing when the refresh attempt started. Says nothing about the duration or the success.
Power BI Service will happily refresh stale data over and over. This can tell you that the refresh mechanics work, but will not be useful for your report users.
The dataset doesn't contain any such dates.Look again, or maybe add your own column based on upstream processing (file last modified date time, for example)