PL-300 Manage and secure Power BI Practice Question
You are a Power BI administrator. A Power BI dataset owner reports that the dataset is not refreshing automatically, but manual refreshes work fine. The dataset uses a cloud data source (Azure SQL Database) with OAuth2 credentials. What is the most likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The OAuth2 token used for the data source credentials has expired.
The OAuth2 token used for the data source credentials has expired. In Power BI, scheduled refreshes run unattended using the stored credentials; if the OAuth2 access/refresh token for the Azure SQL Database source is no longer valid, the scheduled refresh fails while an interactive manual refresh can still succeed because the user re-authenticates on the spot. Options A, B, and C do not fit: RLS misconfiguration would typically cause permission or data-visibility errors rather than a refresh failure, an on-premises data gateway is irrelevant for a cloud data source like Azure SQL Database, and exceeding the capacity refresh limit would affect both scheduled and manual refreshes, not just automatic ones.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Row-level security (RLS) is misconfigured.
Why it's wrong here
Row-level security (RLS) filters data for report viewers based on their identity after the data has been loaded and refreshed. It is a query-time restriction that does not interact with authentication or refresh operations. Since the issue affects only scheduled refresh and not manual refresh, RLS cannot be the root cause.
- ✗
The on-premises data gateway is offline.
Why it's wrong here
The on-premises data gateway is used to connect to on-premises data sources or to bridge VNet connections. The data source in this scenario is cloud-based, meaning the refresh activity runs entirely in the Power BI service without needing a gateway. Therefore, an offline gateway would be irrelevant, and gateway status would not explain why only automatic refresh fails.
- ✗
The dataset exceeds the refresh limit for the assigned capacity.
Why it's wrong here
Capacity refresh limits govern how many times a dataset can be refreshed per day and apply equally to manual and scheduled refreshes. If the limit were exceeded, even manual refreshes would fail with a quota error, not an authentication failure. The symptom of automatic refresh only failing suggests an expired token that is silently used by the scheduler, not a capacity constraint.
- ✓
The OAuth2 token used for the data source credentials has expired.
Why this is correct
OAuth2 tokens are issued with a limited lifetime (usually 1 hour to 90 days depending on the provider) and are used for authentication when connecting to cloud data sources. When a token expires, the Power BI service cannot refresh the dataset automatically because it lacks the ability to prompt for reauthentication. A manual refresh opens a dialog that lets the dataset owner re-authenticate, renewing the token and successfully completing the refresh.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This PL-300 question is part of Courseiva's 524-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PL-300 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PL-300 exam.