what does the refresh button do in Power BI Service

[Jeanxyz]

I'm wondering what the refresh button does in Power BI Service. I have the impression that sometimes  the refresh button manges to query source data and updates charts if there are changes in my source data. But there are also times the refresh button doesn't update charts even if the source data has changed. 

I have created a sample report, the data source is a xlsx file stored in my one-drive. I have added the data source to the gateway and manual data refreshing is successful. 

I have changed the source file, and clicked the Refresh icon in the menu bar and save the report. However, the charts remain the same. I have also clicked the refresh icon in the browser, but the charts still doesn't change. Why the refresh button in PB Service doesn't update the dataset based on source data file?

[otravers · Accepted solution]

Are you talking about the Refresh button in the report toolbar? This button does not refresh data from the source, it merely refreshes visuals based on the latest data in the report's dataset.

[Jeanxyz]

Thank you for the clarfication. I found detailed explanation on data refresh from MS site. 

In Power BI Desktop, refresh of report visuals, data refresh, and schema refresh all happen together using

1. Home ribbon > Refresh button
2. Home ribbon > Transform data > Close & Apply button
3. The context menu (right-click or click on ellipsis) on any table then choosing Refresh data

In PB Serverice, data refresh takes place in the following cases

1. Scheduled refresh
2. Refresh now
3. Refresh a Power BI dataset from Power Automate
4. Processing the table from SQL Server Management Studio (Premium)

Detailed documentation on data refresh in Power BI:

Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

[Jeanxyz]

Yes, that's refreshing button that I'm talking about. If the refresh button is only to refresh charts based on the dataset in Power BI, is it really necesssary? I think each time user opens a report online, the visuals are recalculated based on the dataset in pbix.

So in what case, will the dataset in Power BI to updated? If I replace an existing pb report online by uploading a new version pbix file (same file name), will the online report get refreshed after refreshment?