Power BI Connector - Date Parameter on Action Timeline Items

Hi Camille,

The Power BI data table should contain a timestamp value for when the timeline item was created allowing filtering in your dashboards, is that not the case?

Or are you looking for a way to download just the new data because the data set takes too long to refresh?

If that is the case, unfortunately incremental load isn’t supported on the Power BI connector, but we recommend using the SafetyCulture Exporter to download and refresh a data store such as an SQL database or csv files and use that data store as a reference for Power BI to improve performance. The Exporter supports incremental load for most data sources.

Thanks,

Austin

Hi Austin,

Thank you for your response. Yes I was thinking of something similar to the inspection items (modified before/after) as it takes too long to refresh.

Unfortunately, at this stage we are unable to utilise the SafetyCulture Exporter and the Power BI connector is our only option.

Thanks for clarifying, in this case I believe Power BI is refreshing the whole dataset, including Inspection Items regardless of modified date?

Hi Austin,

Yes correct and it is taking the desktop app 40minutes just to refresh and based on experience when we publish it into Power BI service the scheduled refresh will surely fail if it takes that long.

The last time we investigated improving this experience, having our connector certified by Microsoft (basically making updates much more difficult and which they include in PBI desktop etc) was the only path to having an API connector that supports incremental refresh. 

If you or anyone in the community is familiar with other SaaS connectors that are not certified that support incremental refresh, we would welcome feedback and suggestions of how to make this work.

If the incremental refresh is too difficult to achieve, hopefully having a parameter on that particular table would help. For the Action Timeline Items maybe something Modified Before/After would be sufficient.

I added a months parameter to my Power BI dashboard (1, 3, 6, 12, 24).  I have it set to only download inspections modified since that timeframe.  I wish I had options for conducted and completed dates.  I have not yet applied it to the actions tables, and I agree that this is making refresh very slow.

What we need in the standard sample dashboard is a date filter applied to the data transformation which only gets data for things created/conducted since that date - across Actions, Issues, Inspections, etc.  Even if incremental refresh is not currently available, this simple update to the table functions and PBI data connection options would be easily achievable and a huge help.

Hi @Corey,

How did you add your parameter? Is this outside Get Inspections/Inspection Items?

Yes I 100% agree adding a date filter on conducted and completed before/after would be greatly help us achieve what we require.