Power BI – Data Refresh Date
In this post I will walk through adding a data refresh date on a report page. This is a vital part of the report as it will show the report consumers when the dataset was last refreshed and so how up-to date the report is.
We need a date that will only get updated on a refresh so it needs to be defined in Power Query. So under Get Data select Blank Query and Power Query editor will open.
Into the formula bar enter the following and press return.
=DateTimeZone.UtcNow()The = and () are vital, I spent a good 30 minutes one late evening wasting time due to missing out the brackets. You will get a result of the time in UTC.
The next step is to convert the answer into Table, so click on To Table on the DateTime Tools – Transform ribbon.
Rename your query and the column and change the type of the column to Date/Time/Timezone and you now have a table with a single row of a refresh date in UTC.
After you select Close & Apply you will be able to add the Refresh UTCDate to a card to show the refresh date.
Conclusion
This date will only show the date of the last refresh, this does not validate your data as being accurate if you have some other processes happening to prepare the data outside of the Power BI environment.
‘This date will only show the date of the last refresh, this does not validate your data as being accurate’ – A very diplomatic way of rephrasing the old adage; ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’.
Now there just needs to be a field in the source data saying when thats been updated, and then pull that into the report as well…….
I try to be diplomatic… well in writing at least.
And yes a date from the source would be great. Now in the new Power BI online format the date is now there.