Scheduled refresh always takes three times as long as on-demand refresh

[fbackes]

Each scheduled refresh takes three times as long as on-demand refresh. Is this a bug or a feature?

[v-shex-msft]

HI @fbackes,

Based on document, it said that the 'scheduled refresh' not fully accurate refresh, it may have some delay.

Note:

When you configure a time for scheduled refresh, there can be a delay of up to one hour before it begins.

Reference link:

Data refresh in Power BI

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

[Justair07]

Reading the question I don't think @fbackes is talking about the time the refresh starts but rather the time the refresh takes to complete from start to finish. I have the same question. When I watch my refresh happening in it takes much much longer to complete than a manual refresh. Any idea why that is?

[LexiQiang]

Hi @Justair07 ,

I'm having the same refresh duration difference between manual refresh and scheduled refresh. Have you figured out why this happened? Thanks!

Lexi

[Justair07]

Hi @LexiQiang,

Sorry for the late response. I believe it has to do with using a gateway. When using a gateway I'm speculating that whatever VM is being used has something to do with it. Do you use a gateway?

[HernandezR_JA]

Hi, I can see this is an old topic and even now the issue is the same. When the refresh is scheduled it takes almost 30m to finish, however when I click the button to refresh it only takes around 2minutes (from the same PBI service webpage).

If I open the report in PowerBI for desktop and refresh the data it takes 2minutes also. I'm not using any gateway, all data source is in Sharepoint.

So did anyone find out why is this happening or what is the workaround?

Thanks in advance.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@fbackes The scheduled refresh time is not the Exact time the refresh will take place. From my understanding the goal is that it kicks off within the hour (usually ~30 minutes) from the scheduled refresh time that was set. This is most likely why it appears to take longer, because it hasn't actually executed.