Power BI: your model’s refresh date

There are different types of dates you may want to track when you are viewing visuals or data.

  1. The date range your table or visual covers.
  2. The last date your data runs through. For example, your dataset may run through December 2025 and you are in June 2026. It tells how fresh your data is.
  3. Maybe the earliest date in your dataset. You might want to know how far back you can analyze the data.
  4. If you are pulling from a website, you might want their last refresh date. FRED is a good example of showing the last time they update the data.
  5. Again, if you are pulling from a website, some websites will provide the next time the data will be refreshed. FRED does that.
  6. When your Power BI model was last refreshed.
  7. When your specific Power BI table/query was refreshed.

In prior posts, I have covered #2, #4, and #5.

This post will cover #6, when your Power BI model was last refreshed.

The Setup

In one of my posts, I talked about dynamic text where if I changed the filter – such as the state – the text citation would change to the proper state. CoPilot told me how to set up the dynamic text. Unfortunately, it provided “today’s” date.

Here’s an ugly screenshot of a “scratch page” where I’m trying to figure out which measure formulas I want to use. This is a screenshot before I did any “refresh” action.

Image 1: “Scratch page” of measure experimentation.

There are 3 main experiments on that page:

  1. Using formula NOW(). Since I did this 6/11/2026, it has the date of NOW()
  2. Using formula TODAY(). Again, it has the same date as of when I’m writing this post 6/11/2026. This was a version I was previously using.
  3. Using a table created with M. It has the date of 6/10/2026, the last time I refreshed the model.

I’m showing the same image below but with each section named as A, B, or C. Section B is an example of a citation from the FRED and at the end it shows the date 6/11/2026 of when I supposedly pulled from the website. But that is not true. Neither the table or the Power BI model has been refreshed, so it is technically incorrect in the citation B.

Again, this is before I do any refresh.

Image 2: Orange highlights show old version and the formula used to create the date.

I want to use version C, where the date in the text changes only when I refresh the entire model. (I’m currently ignoring the case of refreshing the queries or table.)

After I hit refresh

After I hit refresh, Power BI formulas update, especially in section C, to show the latest date.

Image 3: After hitting refresh button.

Section C now has the exact moment of when I hit refresh: 6/11/2026 around 8:10 pm.

Creating that refresh date

Here’s the Power Query steps CoPilot gave me:

Power Query steps
1.	Home → Get Data → Blank Query
2.	Open Advanced Editor
3.	Paste:
let
    Source = #table(
        {"Last Refresh DateTime"},
        {{ DateTime.LocalNow() }}
    )
in
    Source
4.	Load this as a table named Last Refresh.

Once you have the query or table, that will show up in your list of tables in the data pane. Now you can use “Last Refresh DateTime” in your cards or dynamic text or a DAX measure.

This date will be an important piece of information to communicate to your end users.

Now I have to update all of my text boxes with this new refresh date.

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