Semantic Model refresh disabled - report in different workspace

[cwollett]

Is there a way to ensure scheduled refreshes work when the semantic model is in one workspace and the report using it is in another. I saw a similar question last year but it didn't get much traction. I am also in disbelief if this is truly the way Power BI works.

Our setup:

• Workspace A
  • contains Semantic Model
• Workspace B
  • Contains Report which uses Semantic Model as a data source
• Report is set up to have a daily refresh, so Semantic Model is being touched daily
• Looking at the activity log history, there are instances of View Report by users within the past 60 days

Despite the activity on Report, I got a notice that "Your scheduled refresh has been paused" due to inactivity. "No one has viewed dashboards or reports built using this semantic model for two months."

I understand that I can set the model to refresh again, but why do I need to manually do that every two months when it has activity on a downstream object? This feels like a bug, but I imagine someone is going to tell me this is intended.

[v-priyankata]

Hi @cwollett 
@aj1973 Thanks for the inputs.

I hope the information provided by user was helpful. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the community.

[cwollett]

Hi @v-priyankata 

Unfortunately the information provided is not a solution.

• aj1973 mentioned that it is common to have semantic models and reports in separate workspaces
• When we do this, our underlying semantic models do not refresh
• The only error message we get is "due to inactivity" - which does not make sense as there are reports being used on top of the data model within the 60 day window.

[v-priyankata]

Hi @cwollett 

After two months of inactivity, scheduled refresh on your semantic model is paused. A semantic model is considered inactive when no user has visited any dashboard or report built on the semantic model. To resume scheduled refresh, revisit any dashboard or report built on the semantic model. That's why your scheduled refresh has been paused. 

Thanks.

[cwollett]

I understand this. However, we did not have two months of inactivity.

I have a semantic model of our incoming ticket requests. When I look at the lineage view and click "Show impact across workspaces" I see "2 Items impacted in total" - 1 is the semantic model in question, and the other is a report in another workspace.

When I check the usage tracking metrics, I see view report items throughout June and July on the report. Yet, it disabled the semantic model refresh.

[v-priyankata]

Hi @cwollett 
If that is the case then please reach out to support team to find out the root cause of the issue
we regret the inconvenience caused Kindly raise a support ticker here How to create a Fabric and Power BI Support ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn.

Thanks.

[v-priyankata]

Hi @cwollett 

I hope you have raised support ticket. If a solution has been found, it would be greatly appreciated if you could share your insights with the community. This would be helpful for other members who may encounter similar issues.

Thanks.

[aj1973]

Hi @cwollett 

Technically this could be a bug in the dataset or more likely a failure as shown in here

Maybe, before rerunning the refresh in the service it is wiser to open the Power Query of the dataset in the Desktop to identify where the failure is coming from.

[cwollett]

Thank you for your reply. We are definitely having the issue shown in the first note from your screenshot, not the second. Reasoning:

• There are no errors in either the semantic model or the report - I verified this by opening the PBIX of both and they refresh with no errors.
• Both the semantic model and the report have been refreshing for months with zero issues - so we are not disabled due to consecutive failures.
• The message we received over the weekend was that inactivity alone was the cause of the refresh being disabled.

The only reason I can think that this would be happening is that the report that gets visited is in another workspace. So if I visit the report, it doesn't know to kick off the refresh of the model in the other workspace? It didn't, by the way, I visited the report and it did not kick off the refresh despite the note in the screenshot saying to resume, visit a report built on the model.

[aj1973]

Separating reports from its dataset in 2 different Wrokspaces is a healthy move according to Power BI best practices. A thin report is connected to its Dataset in a Live Connection Mode and the Queries are sent to the dataset as its data source and nothing else therefore visiting the report does not kick off the refresh of the dataset unless the dataset is in a DQ mode(which is not your case).

The messages from Power BI service can sometimes be confusing and you will have to troubleshooting yourself.