How does the Refresh work in PQ

[gheyman]

If I have a table that was created as a reference of an existing table and I refresh the loaded referenced table is the original table being refreshed as well.

I trying to see whats more efficient from a run time perspective?

Does it make sense to make a copy of a table and remove unneeded steps of just reference. The original table will always be refreshed at some point prior to the referenced table.

Tyring to learn PQ and whats the best way to do things. Sometimes my tables take 12-15 minutes to refresh from data not stored in the excel workbook.

 

[GraH]

Referencing the table means that query continuous where the referenced one stops.

I do that a lot depending on the need. Do I need to repeat the steps of the same query more times? If so, I'll extract the previous common steps as a new query. Then start the other queries from this query as source. It saves me doing repeatedly the same when I have to update the base query. From a maintenance perspective it is a plus.

I understand in PowerBI this has a more positive effect on performance compared to Excel. For one obscure reason, the queries can run simultaneously and all referencing queries will use the same query instance of the source step in PowerBI. In excel they seem to run also simultaneously but each running on a own instance of the source step query. So it actually runs mulitple times the same referenced query in Excel. Do note this might be my personal understanding, not the correct explanation of what's happening under the hood. #PQ_is_obscure_underground