Can I change the order in which datasets refresh?

[bookhouseboy]

Hi, I'm still mystified by a lot of what happens in the background of PBI.

So -- we have set up several datasets to refresh at the same time (8:30 am) using Power BI Pro. If I understand correctly, on Pro, only one dataset refreshes at the same time, so there must be a queue somewhere, right? Where is this queue and can I change the order of the datasets in it?

Because right now, the smallest datasets seem to take the longest to refresh, and that's just silly.

[Burningsuit]

HI @bookhouseboy 

Yes, the Service is a bit difficult to get to grips with. I don't know where you got the idea that only one Dataset refreshes at the same time. I don't think that is the case, refreshes use the Power BI Service and I'm sure that several Datasets are being refreshed at the same time, it just may not be your datasets that are being refreshed!

When a Pro licence schedules a refresh in Power BI Service, that refresh request enters a queue and may wait in the queue for up to an hour before being picked up and run. You can't manage this queue, this is Microsoft managing the load on the Power BI Servers which are used by all the Power BI community that have Pro licences. Manual refreshes are not queued but run straight away, so they appear to take less time.

If the time taken to refresh is important to you, you may be able to shorten the queue wait by scheduling a refresh outside of busy business times. Scheduled refreshes at 9:00PM are often quicker than those at 9:00AM.

Aside from that, there's not much else you can do apart from using a Premium Capacity or Premium Per User licence. The Premium licences run on dedicated capacity, so don't need to share with the rest of the community, hence queue times can be much shorter.

Hope this helps

Stuart

[bookhouseboy · Accepted solution]

Hi Stuart, thanks for the reply!

To explain: I had imaged that even though my datasets compete with other Microsoft users' datasets for computing time, they would still possess an order internally. Otherwise why would they always seem to finish refreshing in the same order?* So I hoped that there would be a way to tell Microsoft, "wherever you put my datasets in the overall queue, please put this one in first, then that one, etc."

But I get from your reply that, whatever happens behind the scenes, there seems to be no such means, so  you answered my question. Thanks!

(* disclaimer: I haven't tested this rigorously)