Refreshing Semantic Models

Trigger, monitor, validate, and troubleshoot semantic model refreshes via the Power BI Enhanced Refresh REST API and Fabric CLI.

Core Concepts

A semantic model refresh reloads data from upstream sources and/or recalculates dependent objects (calculated columns, calculated tables, measures). The scope can be the entire model, specific tables, or individual partitions.

Six refresh types are available via the REST API; a seventh (add) is TMSL-only:

Type	Reloads Data	Recalculates	Primary Use Case	API
full	Yes	Yes	Complete reload from scratch	REST
automatic	Conditional	Conditional	Smart refresh; process only if needed	REST
dataOnly	Yes	No*	Reload data; clear dependents	REST
calculate	No	Yes	Recalculate without reloading data	REST
clearValues	No	No	Empty data from objects	REST
defragment	No	No	Clean up column dictionaries	REST
add	Append	Yes	Append rows to a partition	TMSL

*dataOnly clears dependent objects (calculated columns, calculated tables) but does not recalculate them. Follow with a calculate refresh to restore them.

For detailed descriptions, behavior with incremental refresh policies, commit modes, and parallelism options, consult references/refresh-types.md.

Refresh Workflow

Step 1: Resolve IDs

Extract the workspace and model GUIDs needed for API calls:

WS_ID=$(fab get "WorkspaceName.Workspace" -q "id" | tr -d '"')
MODEL_ID=$(fab get "WorkspaceName.Workspace/ModelName.SemanticModel" -q "id" | tr -d '"')

Step 2: Query Baseline Data (Pre-Refresh Validation)