Hi, I'm Tom Blessing. I'm an expert at helping small to mid-sized companies adopt Power BI. I'm also a recovering investment banker, with deep experience applying technology to otherwise manual data problems. I have dual degrees in Finance and Technology Management from Indiana University.

Resources to help build your fundamentals: Learning Power BI? Data fundamentals are critical for this process to be easier. I've assembled a few DataCamp courses to help. I earn a small commission if you click and purchase.

Introduction to Power BI course: Master Power BI basics and learn to build impactful reports.

Exploratory Data Analysis in Power BI course: Learn about Power BI's Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) and enhance your reports.

Introduction to SQL course: Learn how to create and query relational databases using SQL in just two hours.

Introduction to DAX course: Learn the fundamentals of Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) such as calculated columns, tables, and measures.

Database Design course: Learn to design databases in SQL to process, store, and organize data in a more efficient way.

 The timely and accurate refresh of Power BI datasets is crucial.

However, unexpected failures be a huge disruption.

To proactively address this challenge, it's helpful to get an immediate alert when an automatic refresh fails. There's a built in way to do this and there's a custom way to do this. 

Built in - Easy. Doesn't even need Power Automate because there's already an automation built into Power BI for this.

Custom - More difficult. (I won't cover this here, but there's Microsoft documentation you can work through if you really want to use Power Automate). Create a data alert. Send an email.

In this guide, I'll take you through the step-by-step process of setting up this automated workflow, making sure that you stay informed and can quickly respond to any refresh issues.

Step 1: Prerequisites

This only applies to a Power BI dataset in the Online service. 

Step 2: Settings

• In the workspace where your dataset is stored, go to the 3 dots next to the dataset name. Click Settings. 

Step 3: Refresh Failure

• Scroll down to Refresh and expand it.
• Below the Schedules/Time section, you'll see a 'Send refresh failure notifications to' section. 
• Semantic Model Owner is already checked, but if you want to add people to the notification list, check the 'These contacts' box and enter their email addresses. 

Step 4: Monitor

• Monitor your dataset's performance and make sure an email gets sent when there's a refresh error. I've set this up many times and it works well. 

By following these steps, you can make sure your team is notified when there's a refresh failure. 

This proactive approach helps you quickly address data refresh issues and ensure the reliability of your Power BI reports and dashboards.