Leveraging Power BI Service

Managing Data Refreshes

Learning Outcome

5

Apply best practices for stable refresh performance

4

Monitor refresh failures and notifications

3

Understand refresh limits and inactivity behavior

2

Configure and manage scheduled refreshes

1

Explain how data refresh works in Power BI Service

 Imagine Your dashboard looks perfect.  

Numbers are clean.
Charts are sharp.

 

A week later…

Decisions are made.
But something feels off.

The report didn’t change.

The data did.

No one noticed.

Now imagine another situation.

The data refreshes automatically

 Failures send alerts.
Exports reflect the latest numbers.

The report stays honest.

 

A report is only as good as its last refresh.

If insights depend on data:

What happens when data stops updating?

And how do we even know?

 

That’s why Managing Data Refreshes is critical.

Fresh data keeps decisions trustworthy.

  Reports do not update automatically unless configured  

In real systems:

  • Data changes frequently

Power BI Service provides tools to:

  • Automate refresh

  • Monitor failures

  • Notify users

 The core section explains how refresh works end-to-end

What Data Refresh Means in Power BI

Data refresh updates the dataset, not the report directly

During refresh:

  • Power BI reconnects to the data source
  • Retrieves latest data
  • Recomputes transformations and measures

All reports and dashboards connected to the dataset update automatically after refresh

Key Concept

  • One dataset → many reports
  • Refreshing once updates everything

Key Principle

Types of Data Refresh

Manual Refresh

  • Triggered by a user in Power BI Service

  • Used for testing or urgent updates

Scheduled Refresh

  • Runs automatically at fixed times

  • Most common in production systems

On-Demand Refresh

  • Triggered via API or automation tools
  • Useful for event-driven or real-time business workflows

Configuring Scheduled Data Refresh

Scheduled refresh is configured at the dataset level.

Steps

  1. Open Power BI Service

  2. Go to Workspace → Datasets

  3. Select the dataset

  4. Click Settings

  5. Open Scheduled refresh

  6. Configure:

    • Refresh frequency

    • Time zone

 

Limits

Power BI Pro: Up to 48 refreshes per day

Premium: Higher capacity and concurrency

Scheduled Refresh Inactivity Behavior

Power BI monitors dataset activity continuously

If a dataset:

  • Is not refreshed manually

  • And is not accessed or used for an extended period, it is considered inactive

Inactivity Handling

After approximately 2 months (60 days) of inactivity:

  • Power BI automatically pauses scheduled refresh

  • No automatic refreshes run after this point
     

Why This Happens

How to Resume Refresh

  1. Open the dataset in Power BI Service
  2. Trigger a manual refresh
  3. Scheduled refresh resumes automatically

 Notifications for Refresh Status and Failures

Email Notifications

Power BI can notify users when:

  • Refresh fails

  • Refresh succeeds (optional)

Steps

  1. Go to Dataset → Settings

  2. Enable Refresh failure notifications

  3. Enter email addresses

   Alerts notify users when Data crosses defined thresholds    

Power BI Alerts

Used for:

Refresh Limitations

Best Practices

Remove unused columns

Schedule refresh during low-usage hours

Use incremental refresh for large datasets

Optimize Power Query steps

Why Refresh Management Matters

Summary

5

Best practices improve reliability and performance

4

Notifications help detect failures early

3

Refresh pauses after prolonged inactivity

2

Scheduled refresh automates data updates

1

Data refresh updates datasets, not visuals directly

Quiz

At which level does Power BI refresh data?

A. Dataset level

B. Visual level

C. Dashboard level

D. Report level

At which level does Power BI refresh data?

A. Dataset level

B. Visual level

C. Dashboard level

D. Report level

Quiz-Answer