Regarding Incremental updates

[Another_User]

Hello.

I have a doubt about incremental updates. One of my dashboards fetches data from a table that is renewed every day with new data (the number of users of a serie of stores and more details). The thing is that the database admin only keeps data from one day, so the table is truncated before adding the data of the new day. I need to have a historical of that data, but he rejected to make a historical table. My question is, could incremental updates help me? If I configure incremental updates of 1 day for 1 year, would the old data be stored in the model?

PS: Adding more details. The data source is a SQL Server and my account is Pro.

Thanks,

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

The more complicated answer is that no, this will not work.  Power BI is not a storage solution. You MUST keep your snapshots/historical data further upstream. The moment you make structural changes to your report and publish this to the workspace your incremental refresh will reset and all your old data will be lost.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @Another_User ,

The answer is no, incremental refresh has a 'scrolling window mode'. As the refresh time passes, when a history partition is no longer within the history period defined by the policy, it is completely removed from the model. This will result in incorrect data on your expectations.

Regarding the issue of incremental refresh, I hope you read the following documentation:

Incremental refresh for semantic models and real-time data in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

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

[TomMartens]

Hey @Another_User ,

the simple answer is: yes, data will be added to already existing data in your semantic model.

Regards,

Tom

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

The more complicated answer is that no, this will not work.  Power BI is not a storage solution. You MUST keep your snapshots/historical data further upstream. The moment you make structural changes to your report and publish this to the workspace your incremental refresh will reset and all your old data will be lost.