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Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

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Jean-Pierre Riehl on 17 Aug 2017 15:02:16

Ability to exclude a table from Data Refresh (scheduled, manual, API, etc.) in the Service.
In PBI Desktop, we have an option "Include in report refresh" we can disable for a table. But it won't affect PBI Service.

Comments (83)
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Joshua Flory on 07 May 2021 17:32:31

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

Is this REALLY fixed? I'm still having issues where I will remove a table from inclusion in refresh and it still throws an error :(

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MELİK MASARİFOĞLU on 20 Jan 2021 13:18:39

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

it has not been fixed yet please fix this

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Todd Chittenden on 04 Jan 2021 23:05:12

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

I just heard back from someone at Microsoft who offered some insight into this 'issue'. Apparently, it works now but requires a V3 model (July '20) or the "enhanced metadata format" preview feature.

If you want to get it working, I think you should be able to A) download and install the latest Power BI Desktop, B) open your model in the new Desktop, and C) re-publish to the service.

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Todd Chittenden on 17 Dec 2020 21:49:28

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

I, too, did a quick test just now and it looks like it might have been fixed. It it stable? A previous user indicates that the behavior varies.

So this just makes me wonder if and when Microsoft is going to get around to telling the rest of the world about this fix.

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Sami Assi on 17 Dec 2020 08:52:05

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

Very important. Please add!

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Raymond Boone on 08 Dec 2020 22:43:02

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

I actually spent some time testing this today with the November 2020 version of Power BI desktop and the Power BI service--publishing to a Premium Capacity workspace and the setting works. If I set the query to not load during report refresh, scheduled refreshes did NOT load new data. When I changed the setting in desktop and republished, the data loaded on scheduled refresh as expected.

I did have issues using Power BI Desktop RS May 2020--publishing to a Premium Capacity workspace produced inconsistent results--sometimes the setting worked, other times it did not. It also 100% did not work on the report server.

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Raymond Boone on 08 Dec 2020 18:03:25

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

Agree with everyone posting here. This "feature" doesn't make sense. I found the same behavior on the report server. If you uncheck the box to "Include in report refresh," that should still mean something once you've published the report in the Service or the Server.

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Michael Ressat on 03 Dec 2020 21:45:29

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

It happen so often, that You have beside database sources also local excel sheets as sources which contains static data. But if local PC is not online refresh on Power BI Services fail. I cannot understand that it is not possibe to exclude local data from beeing schedule refresh on Power BI Services. Please implement this feature as soon as possible. Thank You !

Michael Ressat

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Rahul Dhamnani on 04 Nov 2020 18:20:46

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

Include is report refresh is a very useful feature. Please fix this design problem for PowerBI Service. We have a table with 157mil records and it does not require update for long period of time. However, due its size, all small table refreshes in the same data model have to suffer. IT IS IMPORTANT to have selective Table Refresh Feature. I am surprised how design team has missed it!

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Todd Chittenden on 29 Sep 2020 13:21:45

RE: Exclude a table from refresh in Power BI Service

I submitted this as a BUG through the standard Power BI channels based on the comment by someone at Microsoft who read this post and basically said that it's NOT an idea, but a BUG and should be submitted as such and tracked internally, etc.. After about three weeks the product team came back and called BY DESIGN. So that puts its focus back here on User Voice. I'm still doing battle with the Product Team to FIX it and will try to add additional comments to this thread as appropriate.

In the mean time, get your friends and relatives to sign up and VOTE!

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