Power BI
NewSource Dataflows that flow into a single Transform dataflow should refresh at same time without Error
Scott Thomson on 30 Mar 2022 01:42:51
Advanced data model design in Power BI has data tables pulled into staging dataflows once, then transformed by other linked dataflows, then presented by multiple data models. At the moment, if I have a Transform dataflow using three linked DB dataflows I cannot schedule those three DB dataflows at the same time. This is because each of them triggers a refresh of the Transform dataflow and the subsequent ones get a locking error which causes all the refreshes to fail.
This causes developers to have to space out their scheduled refreshes, which means 30mins apart in PBI unless Power Automate used. There are two possible solutions to this;
- Power BI checks for these multiple dependencies and stops the Transform refresh from being triggered until all the dependent refreshes have completed. This would be most efficient.
- Power BI forces a wait on the subsequent linked refreshes until the ongoing refresh is complete. This is less efficient as it will still refresh transform 3 times but better than an error.
An additional option here would be to update the Dataflow Update REST API to "Disable" or "Enable" linked entities in the Transform dataflow. This would allow savvy developers to write code to turn off the links, refresh the DB dataflows, turn them back on and then refresh the Transforms.