Dataflow speed issues

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Posted on by Ben Crowe

I have a user who has noticed that their dataflow has gone from a couple of minutes per refresh to anywhere upto 30 minutes. I've looked at the history and can see that the majority of the time is spent on backend jobs. Is there a way I can get more information on which background task/s are taking the longest?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Valantis 6,735 on at

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Hi @Ben Crowe,

For diagnosing slow dataflow backend jobs, here are the tools available.

1. Dataflow refresh history detail: in PPAC go to your environment > Dataflows > select the dataflow > Refresh history. Click on a specific refresh run and expand the details. This shows per-table/entity timing breakdown which can pinpoint which specific query or table is taking the longest.

2. Power Query diagnostics: open the dataflow in edit mode, go to Tools > Diagnostics and run a diagnostic trace. This captures query execution times and can reveal bottlenecks like slow data source connections, large data volumes, or inefficient transformations.

3. Check if the data source changed: a 30-minute jump from 2 minutes usually means either the source data volume grew significantly, the source system is under load, or a query was changed. Compare the current dataflow queries to what they were previously.

4. Gateway performance: if the dataflow uses an on-premises data gateway, check the gateway machine's CPU/memory during the refresh window. Gateway logs are at C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\PBIEgwService\AppData\Local\Microsoft\On-premises data gateway.

5. Check for Dataverse storage pressure: if the dataflow writes to Dataverse, high Dataverse storage utilization can slow writes significantly. Check PPAC > Capacity.

Best regards,

Valantis

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11manish 3,333 on at

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Unfortunately, Microsoft does not currently expose a detailed breakdown of individual Backend Jobs in the Dataflow refresh history. You can see the total

duration spent in Backend Jobs, but not exactly which internal task (indexing, writes, staging, compute engine processing, etc.) consumed the time.

Start by comparing a fast historical refresh versus a slow recent refresh and determine whether:

Source query time changed.

Data volume changed.

Only Backend Jobs increased.

If the slowdown is isolated to Backend Jobs and there have been no significant solution changes, gather the refresh details and raise a Microsoft support request.

That's currently the only way to obtain a detailed breakdown of the internal processing occurring during the Backend Jobs phase.

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