Any way to trigger an XMLA PBI Refresh operation?

[AnthonyGenovese]

I have a set of XMLA scripts that refresh some PBI models. (Specific table orders, not loading dimensions that don't change, partitions, etc. We don't want to just refresh the entire dataset.) Is it possible to have a data pipeline connect to a PBI XMLA endpoint and execute the scripts?

[AndySteinke]

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=4bfc0f26-6b3b-ee11-a81c-000d3a7bf537

Solid idea, I added it.  We ended up using Powershell to do the refreshes (or logic apps) but having a nice easy connector would be great.

[GraceGu]

There is no native activity supporting this. 

Data pipeilne will soon have native dataset refresh activity, but seems this does not help your case. 

It will be great if you can submit an idea to help prioritization of this need. Thank you!

[DennesTorres]

Hi,

I know this is not exactly the question, but I hope it helps.

Before Microsoft Fabric, I wrote an article about automating table refreshes in Power BI using Azure Automation. This is the link: https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/databases/sql-server/bi-sql-server/how-to-automate-table-level-...

I don't think Data Factory has any connector available for the XMLA endpoint, but you can use alternation options like this one.

Kind Regards,

Dennes

[AnthonyGenovese]

Thanks. We will keep this in mind. We do need to stick with what we already have access to, because our IS department moves so slow in giving us access to other Azure items. 

[DennesTorres]

Hi

This will require some investigation, but I hope I can guide you on the right path:

This link has more links with explanation about how to do this with data factory, using Power BI API's to trigger the refresh. In this case, instead of XMLA, it would be with Power BI API calls: https://data-marc.com/2021/10/28/automate-power-bi-single-table-refresh-using-azure-data-factory-and...

Another possibility to stick to XMLA would be to create a custom activity for data factory. These links below may give you some direction:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/fasttrack-for-azure/developing-custom-activities-in-data-fact...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/transform-data-using-custom-activity 

Kind Regards,

Dennes