Dataflows based on Power Query are a great tool for business users to manipulate data from multiple sources, thus automating otherwise tedious manual work processes. However, I am still weary to recommend using Power Query dataflows at scale due to inconsistent performance and server stability.
For internal reasons, our environments (and thus Power Query servers) are in the Europe region. I was wondering if users in other reasons were regularly (weekly) experiencing such issues:
1. We encountered an unexpected error
This cryptic message pops up way too often when using the editor, or trying to open the Power Query editor. And then it disappears, minutes or hours later.
2. There was a problem refreshing the dataflow. please try again later.
A problem, what problem? Later, how much later?
3. Dataflows that regularly take only a couple minutes to run occasionally take much longer (sometimes several hours)
The above considers very similar data volumes and identical, Microsoft cloud-based data sources(ie Sharepoint cloud and Dataverse via OData)
In any case, these messages should be more detailed.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Power Query. I would just like to be able to rely on Power Query dataflows as much as I rely on other Microsoft products. As a Microsoft advocate within my organization, it is a little frustrating to have to go to my boss and say, "sorry, the dataflow crashed today, the numbers will be available later", "it crashed again? later, how long?", "later."
Thank you @bezhan-msft for your great work on this product. I am confident that the product will become more and more stable and will eventually be used even more broadly in the Power Platform (shameless plug, see my Idea post here : Action to transform data with Power Query - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com) )
