With this kind of automatic page refresh, Power BI polls a single measure on a schedule and redraws the page only if the measure's result has changed. Only one such measure is allowed per model, and in the service it requires Fabric, Premium or PPU capacity; shared capacity cannot use it.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Change detection in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Automatic page refresh
A page-level option that makes visuals re-query a DirectQuery source on a timer or whenever a change detection measure's value moves. It isn't available for Import models, and in the service the capacity sets the shortest interval allowed.
- Power BI
Microsoft's analytics and reporting service. It reaches data held on-premises through the on-premises data gateway.
- Measure
A figure like total revenue, worked out by aggregating fact table data wherever dimensions intersect within a semantic model.
- Premium
Hosting plan for Azure Functions that keeps instances pre-warmed to avoid cold starts and supports VNet integration. Executions time out after 30 minutes by default, which host.json can extend.
- PPU
Premium Per User. Licensed person by person, it adds most Premium capacity features on top of everything Pro offers. Items in a PPU workspace are shareable only with other PPU licence holders, and no Fabric capacity comes with it.
- Capacity
A reserved block of compute for a tenant whose size is fixed by its SKU; Fabric F SKUs express it in capacity units (CUs). Workspaces assigned to it unlock features like Copilot, and from F64 upwards people with free licences can view Power BI content.
- Shared capacity
Hosts all My workspaces, Pro workspaces and Premium Per User workspaces in a tenant, and receives newly created ones unless reassigned. No compute is dedicated; Pro content there is capped at 1 GB per model and eight refreshes daily.
Related terms
- Incremental load
Rather than reloading everything each time, this approach does one full copy and afterwards moves only rows that are new or changed, found through CDC, change tracking or a high watermark. It scales better than full loads, provided change detection can be trusted.
- Indexer schedule
A repeating interval for running an indexer, five minutes at the shortest, which allows a lengthy indexing job to continue from where it left off when change detection is turned on. It does not make indexing run in parallel.