Forum Discussion
PowerBI data model Refresh hung up - 3 hour failure
Hi dunn1373
To improve performance and ensure data consistency in your Power BI model, especially when working with bitemporal and snowflake schemas, consider the following strategies:
- Flatten your schema where possible using Power Query or SQL views to reduce complexity and avoid issues with inner joins.
- Use a bridge date table (e.g., BusinessDate) with TREATAS() for handling From_Date and To_Date across multiple tables. This helps apply time-based logic without expanding rows unnecessarily.
- Split data using composite models — import recent data for performance and use DirectQuery or summarized tables for older records.
- Manage relationships with DAX: Keep certain relationships inactive and use USERELATIONSHIP() when needed to control filter context safely.
- Avoid DAX in slicers: Instead, create a proper dimension table for filtering to ensure it works with visuals.
These techniques help keep your model scalable and responsive, even with complex logic and large datasets.
If the above information helps you, please give us a Kudos and marked the Accept as a solution.
Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.
Community SupportHi dunn1373
I wanted to follow up since I haven't heard from you in a while. Have you had a chance to try the suggested solutions?
If your issue is resolved, please consider marking the post as solved. However, if you're still facing challenges, feel free to share the details, and we'll be happy to assist you further.
Looking forward to your response!
Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.
I have taken actions of my own, but most of the proposed suggestions and/or solutions were not helpful. I have found ways to slim the model and refactored some code to help but I know this will come up again. My feedback to the Microsoft support would be as follows:
1 - if you do incremental refresh, downloading the full data model and making changes is more difficult
2 - we have broken down bigger tables into smaller partitions already - that's not really a solution to the issues I have operating in the PowerBI Pro environment. you're asking me to make it easier on your product by making it more difficult for me. I can, and will, continue to improve my data models. but it shouldn't be the second suggestion. that's like an auto manufacturer telling a driver to try driving slower.
3 - As i stated, this is not a Premium Capacity
4 - Moving our schedules to not align with business needs is not a solution either - again you're asking me to ease the burden on Microsoft by making it less convenient for me and my stakeholders