I have a Power BI report which I need to update one in a while.
All its tables were loaded from some internet URL, but only one of them needs to be updated, all the others have static data.
How do I make Power BI stop trying to reload the static tables?
Or how do I copy the data from these tables into new "non-internet-loaded" tables?
In the Query Editor, right-click on the queries and toggle off Include in report refresh where appropriate.
(The Enable load toggle is useful for queries that you only use for staging and don't actually want to load into your model.)
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I need help with improving refresh times on a Power BI dashboard with about 20M rows of data and 80 columns pulling from SQL Server. I cannot use Power BI Service in any capacity, this has to load into Power BI Desktop.
My refresh times on the raw data (virtually no transformations in Power Query) are taking about 3-4 hours.
Microsoft recommends incremental refresh to archive my historical data and only refresh the latest changes, but that requires Service and I 100% cannot use it.
Is there any other way to significantly improve my refresh times beyond Service's incremental refresh? If it was under an hour I'd be happy.
What I've tried:
Native Query to leverage the server
reducing column selections
removing all transformations
Splitting tables in Power Query and selectively turning off refresh in the historical tables - as soon as they get stacked/appended Power Query triggers a refresh on all stacked tables regardless of which ones have refresh turned off.
Looked into Power Query PQFL/M code to activate refresh of tables - can't find any method/property to control this in M code.
optimizing the SQL, haven't gotten any significant improvements.
20 million rows should not take that long, especially with no transformations. Something else is going wrong but without access to your data and hardware, it is impossible to say.
One possibility is do an initial data load and then turn off refresh on that query. Add a new query for just the new data (which should be quick) but load the new query to a completely new table. In PBI, you will then have two tables. Create a calculated table in DAX which is a union of your old, non-refreshed data and your new data. Refreshes should be very quick after your first load but obviously you need to think about how it scales as your data grows.
We are having difficulty finding a method of sharing a dataset and allowing users to use that dataset to create and publish their own reports. This would include ability to create new measures (Dax) and then publish themselves. Using the "service" live connection does not seem to allow that and if not using that there seems to be an issue of refreshing the data once that dataset is downloaded and modified with new columns/measures etc.
Greatly appreciate any help on this. So far I have seen nothing that shows how to do any of this so I have to assume it may not be possible? Thank you.
Live Connect to a Power BI Dataset allows for local measures.
If you need more modeling changes when working with a remote Data Set, the DirectQuery for Power BI Datasets and AAS feature (currently in preview) enables you to mash-up remote Data Set tables, with local tables, and allows for adding calculated columns to remote tables.
But you should use this with some care, as the query processing is split between the local model and the remote model(s), which can cause performance issues.
I am working on SSAS Tabular project and I am using Live Connection when importing data to Power BI.
Do I need to schedule refresh in Power BI ?
Power BI does not import data over connections that operate in DirectQuery/LiveConnect mode. Instead, the dataset returns results from the underlying data source whenever a report or dashboard queries the dataset. Power BI transforms and forwards the queries to the data source.
Although DirectQuery mode and LiveConnect mode are similar in that Power BI forwards the queries to the source, it is important to note that Power BI does not have to transform queries in LiveConnect mode. The queries go directly to the Analysis Services instance hosting the database without consuming resources on shared capacity or a Premium capacity.
Because Power BI does not import the data, you don't need to run a data refresh. However, Power BI still performs tile refreshes and possibly report refreshes, as the next section on refresh types explains. A tile is a report visual pinned to a dashboard, and dashboard tile refreshes happen about every hour so that the tiles show recent results. You can change the schedule in the dataset settings, or force a dashboard update manually by using the Refresh now option.
Without a premium licensing, is it possible to simulate an incremental refresh to speed up Power BI Desktop?
Say, we keep all the data before a certain date in a local Access database and connect to the "live" database only for data after that date?
The question is how to export the historical data from one or several pbix file to Access, how can we do that?
Try doing it as a composite model. Load your archive data as one query using Import and your recent data as another query using Direct Query. Then you can union those to tables as a DAX calculated table and use that for your report.
If you aren't using Direct Query for recent data or you need to be refreshing your model, then I believe you can uncheck "Include in report refresh" in the query editor (right-click on the query in the Queries pane) and it won't refresh that archive table unless you specifically ask it to.
I'm new to Power BI (Free Version) and I have been asked to develop a report system which generates report from an excel sheet, the reports work good for only the data I have collected.
but my question is how to connect to the data immediately from SQL server without the need to convert it to excel and then import it in power BI, I also want the data to be refreshed dynamically.
One of the solutions I tried is to add new dataset but I get the following message:
Refresh can't be scheduled because the data set doesn't contain any
data model connections, or is a worksheet or linked table. To schedule
refresh, the data must be loaded into the data model.
I have looked for many solutions but none has worked.
am I missing a concept? thank you
If this data is stored in a SQL SERVER table it is a pretty straight forward process.
When you create a new power bi report (.Pbix) you should see a prompt asking you if you want to "Get Data". You would select the 'SQL Server Database' option - See the image below:
Then, you will be asked to enter the Server and Database name, and to specify either 'Import' or 'Direct Query' mode. If you choose 'Import' the data will be refreshed every time you access the report or upon 'Refresh' within a report session. If you choose the latter, the connection will always be live i.e. any changes to the data in your database will be reflected in the report.
Once you get passed this window, you will be asked to either specify credentials or use a windows authentication to access the database and server. After that you can either specify a query to pull in some data or you can select from a list of tables.
I hope this helps!!