Improving Data Load Speeds with Incremental Refresh
Incremental refresh is a feature originally released for Power BI Premium capacities but has become a feature for Pro licenses as well. Prior to incremental refresh, Power BI only had a single mode of operation when refreshing datasets, full load. In other words, the existing data in the dataset was removed and entirely replaced each time the dataset refreshed. The full load refresh process could take a long time when dealing with large fact tables with millions of rows. Incremental refresh solves this problem by only refreshing new and changed data within the dataset. Since incremental refresh is relatively new, older datasets are likely still using the full load process and thus might benefit from being retrofitted with incremental refresh.
This recipe demonstrates how to set up and configure incremental refresh in Power BI.
Getting ready
To prepare for this recipe, follow these steps:
- Open a Power BI Desktop...
