Christopher Crance on 18 May 2023 14:09:08
My understanding is that currently the Power BI service will automatically pause your scheduled refresh of a dataset "due to inactivity" if no one views reports built using the dataset for two months. I understand why this was implemented and the problem it is intended to solve, and I appreciate the attempt. However, I have a couple issues with this implementation.
- Isn't it possible that users can build reports that may be viewed periodically outside of the arbitrary two month window? E.g. Maybe based on an organization's financial or other annual schedule, a certain report is primarily used on a quarterly basis, semi-annually, or even during one portion of the year (last month of the fiscal year, summer hiring/onboarding season, etc.), and may only periodically or sporadically be used outside of those periods. Why the arbitrary two months? Anyone with access to reports I've published expects that they're accurate and up-to-date whenever they view them. I understand that viewing a report is supposed to restart the refresh schedule, but I need the reports to be refreshed and accurate before a user looks at it, not after. How will they know a report is outdated and hasn't been refreshed in more than two months? At a minimum, the user should be able to specify an appropriate time period at which to pause a report "due to inactivity." But even further, give the user the ability to disable this entirely.
- How "inactivity" is determined needs to be redefined. It currently appears to be defined as, "when no user has visited any dashboard or report built on the dataset". This seems like a poor definition. Can't users build datasets for purposes other than building a dashboard or report? One prime example is gathering and manipulating data from multiple sources into a single dataset to then be consumed by a Power Automate process. With the somewhat recent addition of the "Run a query against a dataset" feature in Power Automate, it seems like this should "count" as using a dataset and thus that dataset's scheduled refresh should not be paused. I've also read some posts suggesting that viewing embedded reports also does not "count". If this definition were fixed to include any of the other ways a dataset can be accessed and used, then the improvements from point 1 above would be less important (but should still be considered).
Hoping for a speedy fix.