How to Auto Refresh a Power BI Report in the Browser

A Power BI report open in a browser usually does not update by itself. When the semantic model refreshes on its schedule, the report on screen can keep showing the old numbers until someone reloads the page or clicks Refresh visuals. That is a real problem for a report on an office TV or a wall monitor, where nobody is around to click.

Power BI's built-in fix, automatic page refresh, works only with DirectQuery and similar live sources, and in a Pro workspace it can't refresh more often than every 30 minutes. For any other report, the simplest way to auto refresh a Power BI report is to reload the browser page on a timer. Auto Refresh Page does this in Chrome, Edge and Firefox: pick an interval that matches your data refresh schedule, and the report reloads with the latest data on its own.

Auto Refresh

English 

Running 

Time Interval

Refresh List

Detect Keyword

5 Seconds

10 Seconds

15 Seconds

5 Minutes

10 Minutes

✓ 15 Minutes

Add custom time 

+ Custom Time

Random Interval 

+ Random Time

Save

Why doesn't my Power BI report update automatically?

Power BI has two separate kinds of refresh, and a report only changes on screen when the second one happens.

• Data refresh loads new data from your sources into the semantic model, usually on a schedule. A model in a shared (Pro) workspace can have up to 8 scheduled refreshes a day, and a model on Premium, Premium Per User or Fabric capacity up to 48.
• Visual refresh is the report asking the model for its numbers again. In the Power BI service, this happens when the browser loads or reloads the report, when you click Refresh visuals in the top menu bar, or through automatic page refresh.

Microsoft's data refresh documentation gives this exact example: if you open a report and a scheduled refresh then updates the imported data, "the report visuals in the open browser won't update until a refresh of report visuals is initiated."

There is one exception. Power BI now updates open Import-mode reports after a model refresh, but only for users with write permission on the semantic model, and Microsoft notes it can become unreliable when more than about 1,000 users have that permission. A display account that can only view the report, which is the usual and safer setup for a TV, doesn't get these updates.

Automatic page refresh or a browser auto refresh?

Automatic page refresh is set by the report author in Power BI Desktop or the service, under Page refresh in the formatting pane. The table compares it with reloading the page from the browser.

If your report uses DirectQuery and the interval you need is allowed in your workspace, use automatic page refresh. It is built in and refreshes only the visuals. In every other case, including the most common one, an Import-mode report shown on a TV, reload the page.

How to auto refresh a Power BI report in the browser

1. Install Auto Refresh Page from the Chrome Web Store. It is free and also available for Microsoft Edge and Firefox.
2. Sign in to the Power BI service, open the report and go to the page you want on screen. The page is part of the web address, so every reload comes back to the same page.
3. Click the Auto Refresh icon. On the Time Interval tab, choose a preset such as 15 Minutes, or click + Custom Time to enter your own interval (see the table below).
4. Leave Hard Refresh unticked. A normal reload makes the report ask the model for its numbers again. Hard Refresh only downloads the page's own files again, which makes each reload slower.
5. For a screen that runs all the time, open Advanced Options and tick Start auto refresh on browser start, so refreshing starts again after the computer restarts. See browser startup options.
6. Click Save and check that the switch at the top of the popup reads Running.
7. Make the report fill the screen. Use View → Full screen in the report, or press F11 for browser full screen.

If you want to see when the next reload will happen while you set things up, tick Show visual timer on the webpage, then turn it off again before the screen goes live.

What refresh interval should I use?

A reload can only show data that the semantic model already has. Reloading every 30 seconds does not help when the model refreshes eight times a day. It just sends more queries to Power BI. Match the interval to how often your data changes:

With DirectQuery, each reload sends queries to your data source. Check with whoever looks after that database before you use short intervals on several screens. Microsoft's own advice for automatic page refresh applies here too: don't refresh more often than new data actually arrives.

How to set up a Power BI report on a TV or wall display

• Use a view-only account. The screen is on show to everyone, so give its account permission to view the report and nothing more. The account still needs the license your organization requires for viewing that report.
• Stop the computer from sleeping. In the operating system's power settings, set the screen and the computer never to sleep while plugged in. A computer that is asleep doesn't reload anything.
• Keep the tab awake. Chrome's Memory Saver and Edge's sleeping tabs can put background tabs to sleep. Auto Refresh Page stops that from happening to any tab with an active refresh timer, so the report keeps reloading even if it is not the tab in front.
• Several reports on one computer? Open each report in its own tab or window and save a timer for each. All of them appear in the Refresh List, where one switch pauses or resumes them together. See how to manage multiple URLs.
• Plan for sign-in. A reload counts as activity, which helps with sites that sign you out when you are idle (see how to keep a session alive). It can't extend a sign-in that your organization limits to a fixed number of hours. When that happens, the screen shows the sign-in page until someone signs in again.

Does this work with Power BI dashboards and apps?

Yes. Auto Refresh Page reloads whatever page is open, so it works the same way for reports opened from a Power BI app and for dashboards. On a dashboard, tiles pinned from Import-mode models are updated during each data refresh. Microsoft notes that pinned live report pages are not, and suggests using the browser's refresh button for them, which is exactly what a timed reload does.

You don't need to change your report, your workspace or your license to keep a Power BI screen up to date. Install Auto Refresh Page, open the report, set an interval that matches your data refresh, and leave it running. The same steps work for any other dashboard that only updates when you reload the page. For more on intervals, see custom time intervals.