Skip to main content

Power BI

Needs Votes

Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Vote (200) Share
Matt Allington's profile image

Matt Allington on 07 Aug 2016 05:29:28

The new "Include in Report Refresh" released in July 2016 is a great addition - now the data modeller can selectively turn on/off tables to be refreshed.

It would be great to allow the user to set parameters and events to control when a table is refreshed. Eg a parameter that says "if a server cannot be found, then skip the refresh for a certain table". Maybe also allow users to set other events (or error codes) where selective processing can be managed. This will allow granular management of refreshing when a user needs to partially refresh a workbook as described here http://exceleratorbi.com.au/?p=17985

Comments (18)
Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Giedrius Vegys on 08 Oct 2021 11:40:13

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Without this feature many opportunities to use Power BI with databases that do not use transaction tables are lost. For example Project management data bases. You can not do much of analytics on such databases as they are "spot databases" (i.e. they have meaningful information only on the date when they are refreshed).

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Brett Phillippe on 03 Dec 2020 22:55:15

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Is there a way to accomplish this using incremental refresh somehow?
Since its not a "feature" it feels like there's a work around using incremental refresh to not look at that data for more info.

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Vatsal Makadia on 06 Jul 2020 00:16:19

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Allows granular control, must have feature

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Grace on 06 Jul 2020 00:04:34

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

A must-have feature!

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:49:34

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Great Feature to have, currently stuck with a problem, i have a budget file i uploaded that i do not wish to refresh

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Sergey Fedotov on 05 Jul 2020 23:48:44

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

It's a shame that so long after the original post this idea still has not come to fruition. There are some tables in our models that we only load from configuration files once, and don't need to touch at all - like the calendar table. Because we have MFA enabled, I cannot refresh from SharePoint online, and having my PC on all the time for gateway connection seems to be a poor workaround.

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Todd Chittenden on 05 Jul 2020 23:48:38

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

See this post on the forums: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Disabling-quot-Include-in-report-refresh-quot-not-working/m-p/517796#M242093

The feature to "Include (or not) in Report Refresh" is a waste of time. It is ONLY honored by Power BI Desktop and NOT honored by Power BI Service.
So even if you DON'T want to have a data set refreshed by unchecking that box, Power BI SERVICE WILL try to refresh it.

I see this as a BUG. Microsoft may tell us that is it "by design", to which I would respond that it is a horrible design specification that needs to be re-worked.

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Power BI User on 05 Jul 2020 23:48:24

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Must have feature!

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Jaap Olsthoorn on 05 Jul 2020 23:48:18

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Very useful! Stop refreshing static data! Woohoo!

Matt Allington's profile image Profile Picture

Wout O on 05 Jul 2020 23:47:56

RE: Extend "Include In Report Refresh" Further

Please also make the PowerBI Service respect the option "Include in report refresh".
Right now when I add a static data source (eg. zip-codes) which I don't want to refresh through the gateway, I can't use the gateway at all because he can't find the file with the zip-codes.