How to Schedule Refresh in Power BI

Building a powerful report in Power BI is a great first step, but its value drops the moment your data becomes outdated. Manually refreshing your dataset every morning is a chore that's easy to forget. This article will show you how to automate your reports by scheduling a data refresh in the Power BI service, ensuring you and your team are always making decisions with the most recent information.

Why Should You Schedule a Data Refresh?

Working with fresh data isn't just a "nice to have" - it's fundamental to good analysis. When your reports reflect the latest sales numbers, marketing campaign performance, or operational metrics, you can react quickly to opportunities and threats. Relying on old data is like driving while looking in the rearview mirror, you're basing today's choices on yesterday's conditions.

While you can always open your PBIX file and hit the "Refresh" button in Power BI Desktop, this manual process has serious limitations:

• It's time-consuming: Opening files, waiting for data to load, and republishing takes up valuable time, especially with larger datasets and multiple reports.
• It's prone to human error: You might get busy and forget to refresh, leaving a whole team looking at stale visuals without even realizing it.
• It doesn't scale: Manually refreshing a dozen reports every day is not a sustainable workflow.

Automating your refreshes solves these issues. By setting a schedule, you ensure your data is consistently and reliably updated in the background, freeing you up to focus on analyzing the insights, not just gathering the data.

Important Pre-Steps: What You Need First

Before you jump into scheduling, there are a few prerequisites to get in order. Sorting these out now will prevent headaches and error messages later.

1. Power BI Pro or Premium License

Scheduled refresh is a feature of the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com), not the free Desktop application. To use it, you and anyone viewing the content will need either a Power BI Pro or Premium license. It's also important to know your refresh limits:

• Power BI Pro: You can schedule up to 8 refreshes per dataset, per day.
• Power BI Premium: You get a massive bump up to 48 refreshes per dataset, per day.

2. The On-Premises Data Gateway (For Local Data)

The next piece of the puzzle is the gateway, which acts as a secure bridge between your local data sources and the Power BI cloud service. You only need this if some of your data lives outside of the cloud.

When you need a gateway:

• Connecting to an Excel spreadsheet, CSV, or Access database on your computer or a local network drive.
• Connecting to an on-site database, like SQL Server or Oracle, hosted on a server in your office.

When you DON'T need a gateway:

• Connecting to cloud-only data sources like SharePoint Online, Salesforce, Azure SQL Database, or Google Analytics. Power BI can connect to these directly over the internet.

If you need one, you can download the On-premises data gateway (standard mode) from the official Power BI website. It needs to be installed on a computer that is always on and connected to your network, as the scheduled refresh will fail if the gateway machine is offline.

3. Data Source Credentials in the Power BI Service

After you publish your report, Power BI doesn't automatically save the passwords or credentials you used in Power BI Desktop to get the data. For a refresh to work, you need to provide those credentials securely within the Power BI service. We'll cover exactly how to do this in the steps below, but it's a common stumbling block that prevents refreshes from running.

Step-by-Step Guide to Scheduling Your Refresh

Once you’ve got the prerequisites handled, setting up the schedule is straightforward. Follow these steps carefully.

Step 1: Publish Your Report

Start in Power BI Desktop. Once your report is complete, click the "Publish" button on the Home ribbon. You’ll be prompted to choose a destination workspace in the Power BI service. Select the workspace where you want the report to live.

Step 2: Navigate to Your Workspace and Find the Dataset

Log in to the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com) and go to the workspace where you just published your report. Here you'll see two new items with the same name: your Report (with the orange icon) and your Dataset (with the blue icon).

Remember: All settings for a data refresh are handled at the dataset level, not the report level.

Find your dataset, click the ellipsis (...) next to its name, and select Settings.

Step 3: Check Gateway Connection (If Applicable)

If you're using a data gateway for on-premises sources, this is where you connect it. In the settings screen, you’ll see a section called "Gateway and cloud connections."

• Your previously installed gateway should appear here.
• You'll see a list of the data sources from your PBIX file. You need to map each local source to the gateway connection. If the status says "Not configured correctly," you need to add this source to the gateway.

This tells Power BI: "Hey, to get the data for this SQL server, you need to go through this specific gateway."

Step 4: Edit Your Data Source Credentials

Scroll down to the "Data source credentials" section. You'll see each of your data sources listed. Click on "Edit credentials" for each one.

• For cloud sources (like SharePoint): You'll likely use "OAuth2" as the Authentication method. Sign in with your account to grant Power BI permission.
• For on-premises sources (like SQL Server): You might use "Windows" for authentication, entering your domain\username and password, or "Basic" for a SQL user and password.

Once you've entered them correctly, a small green checkmark or a success message will appear. This is how you confirm Power BI can now access your data source on your behalf.

Step 5: Configure the Scheduled Refresh

Now for the main event! Scroll down to the "Scheduled refresh" section and expand it.

1. Toggle "Keep your data up to date" from Off to On. This will reveal the scheduling options.
2. Refresh frequency: Choose either "Daily" or "Weekly."
3. Time zone: Select the correct time zone for your refresh schedule. This is very important! A refresh scheduled for 8:00 AM in the wrong time zone might run in the middle of the night.
4. Add another time: Click "Add another time" to specify when you want the refresh to happen. For example, you could set it to run at 7:00 AM so a report is fresh before your workday starts. You can add up to 8 different times on a Pro plan.
5. Send refresh failure notifications: Check this box if you want to receive an email alert if a scheduled refresh fails for any reason. By default, it goes to you (the dataset owner), but you can add other email addresses as well.

Click "Apply" to save your settings.

Bonus Step: Triggering a Manual Refresh

Don't want to wait for your next scheduled time slot? You can trigger an instant refresh from the Power BI service. Navigate back to your workspace view, find your dataset, and click the circular "Refresh now" icon. This is perfect for testing your connection and credentials or for when you need to see updated data immediately.

Troubleshooting Common Refresh Failures

Sometimes, a refresh fails despite your best efforts. Here are some of the most common reasons and their fixes:

• Gateway is Offline: If you use a gateway, the machine it's installed on must be on and connected to the internet. If it’s turned off or asleep, the refresh will fail. Ensure it is running on a reliable machine.
• Expired Credentials: A common issue with cloud 'OAuth2' credentials. They expire over time or when you change your password. Go back to the dataset settings, click "Edit credentials," and sign in again to re-authenticate.
• Changes in Data Source: If someone changes a column name in your source database or Excel file, your Power Query steps may fail. Open your PBIX in Desktop, refresh it there to identify the error, fix it, and republish.
• Data Privacy Levels: When editing credentials, you're asked to set a privacy level (e.g., Organizational, Public). Mismatched levels between sources can cause errors. Try setting them all to 'Organizational' if they are internal sources.

Final Thoughts

Setting up a scheduled refresh in Power BI is a critical skill that transforms your static reports into a dynamic, real-time decision-making platform. By connecting your dataset, configuring your credentials and gateway correctly, and setting a consistent schedule, you ensure that your team always has access to the most current and accurate data.

Setting up gateways and managing credentials across platforms can sometimes feel like a full-time job. With Graphed, we handle all that complexity for you. We provide one-click integrations to your sales and marketing data sources, and your dashboards are always connected to live data automatically. You never need to worry about setting refresh schedules or managing gateways - you can just ask for a report in plain English and trust that the data is always up to date.