Question

What strategies can I use to optimize refresh performance and avoid loading large tables when unnecessary?
My Power BI reports take a long time to refresh, particularly when large tables are involved. I’m looking for strategies or best practices to optimize refresh performance and avoid loading large tables unnecessarily, improving the overall refresh time.

Answer 1

o optimize Power BI refresh performance and avoid loading large tables unnecessarily:

1. Use Incremental Refresh to update only new or changed data.

2. Enable DirectQuery for real-time querying without loading data.

3. Offload heavy data transformations to Power BI Dataflows.

4. Filter and reduce data size in Power Query Editor.

5. Optimize relationships using a star schema.

6. Enable query folding to push transformations to the data source.

7. Schedule refreshes during off-peak times to minimize load.

8. Pre-aggregate data at the source or within Power BI.

9. Disable auto-data type detection for faster refreshes.

10. Optimize DAX measures by simplifying calculations.

These strategies will help reduce refresh time and improve performance when working with large datasets.