Scheduled Refresh Starts Late Despite Set Time

[SY001]

Hello everyone,

I've scheduled a refresh for my Power BI report to run at 9:00 AM EST. However, I've noticed that the refresh doesn't start until around 9:14 AM, even though the actual refresh process only takes about 15 seconds. This delay is causing issues because I need the updated data to be available precisely at 9:00 AM.

I want to mention that no other reports or datasets are scheduled to refresh at this time. Only this one report is set to refresh at 9:00 AM, so there shouldn't be any conflicts or resource contention on my end. I'm using Power BI Pro.

I'm aware of the information in the official documentation stating:

"Note also that the configured refresh time might not be the exact time when Power BI starts the next scheduled process. Power BI starts scheduled refreshes on a best-effort basis. The target is to initiate the refresh within 15 minutes of the scheduled time slot, but a delay of up to one hour can occur if the service can't allocate the required resources sooner."

Despite this, the delay is problematic for my use case, and I'm looking for a solution or workaround.

My questions are:

1. Is there a way to ensure that the refresh begins exactly at the scheduled time (9:00 AM), or at least minimize the delay?
2. What steps can I take to resolve this issue so that my report is refreshed and ready by 9:00 AM?
   
   

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards,
Suhrob Yusupov

[v-zhouwen-msft]

Hi AlexisOlson ,thanks for the quick reply, I'll add more.

Hi @SY001 ,

Regarding your question, Pro uses shared capacity. The refresh start time depends on how much or how little the shared capacity load is at the time, so the refresh start time every day may be earlier or slower. If the 9 o'clock refresh is not necessary, you can choose another time period. If your organization has premium capacity, ask your administrator to add your workspace to the premium capacity.

Best Regards,
Wenbin Zhou

[AlexisOlson · Accepted solution]

With Power BI Pro, you're sharing computing resources with lots of other users and it's not practical for Microsoft to build enough capacity so that everyone gets their refresh exactly at the top of the hour, so they smooth this spike in demand by spreading it out a bit.

You might be able to create some sort of automation that triggers a manual refresh right at 9, but I'm not positive that will work. Nothing can completey get rid of the spike in demand of pooled resources completely unless you pay for dedicated capacity.