PL-300 Deploy and maintain assets Practice Question
You manage a Power BI workspace used by the sales team. After updating a dataset with new columns, some users report that their reports show old data. You verify that the scheduled refresh completed successfully. What should you do first?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume a successful scheduled refresh automatically propagates all changes, including schema modifications, when in fact it only refreshes data within the existing model structure.
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
✓
Open the report in Power BI Desktop, refresh the dataset, and republish.
When a dataset is updated with new columns in Power BI Desktop, the report's underlying data model must be refreshed and republished to the Power BI service. Even if the scheduled refresh completes successfully, it only refreshes the existing data structure; it does not automatically incorporate schema changes like new columns. Republishing the .pbix file ensures the service has the updated metadata and data.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Open the report in Power BI Desktop, refresh the dataset, and republish.
Why this is correct
Opening the report in Power BI Desktop and refreshing the dataset forces Power Query to re-evaluate the data source schema, including renamed, removed, or added columns. After the refresh, republishing the .pbix file overwrites the dataset in the Power BI service, replacing the stale metadata and ensuring the report's visuals and calculations bind to the current schema. This is the only option that directly updates the dataset definition, not just the data values.
- ✗
Clear the users' browser cache.
Why it's wrong here
Clearing users' browser cache removes locally cached JavaScript, CSS, and visual thumbnails, but it has no effect on the dataset schema stored in the Power BI service. The schema mismatch error originates from the dataset metadata, which lives server-side; even a completely fresh browser session will still receive the same outdated model. Thus, this action cannot reconcile the report with the new source schema.
- ✗
Reconfigure the scheduled refresh to run more frequently.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the scheduled refresh frequency only tells the Power BI service to fetch data more often using the existing dataset definition. If the underlying source schema has changed, the refresh itself will likely fail with a schema validation error (e.g., 'column not found') because the query steps in the dataset still reference old structures. This change does not update the dataset metadata, so it either fails or continues to load data with the old persisted schema.
- ✗
Reset the on-premises data gateway.
Why it's wrong here
Resetting the on-premises data gateway restarts the connectivity agent that moves data between a private network and Power BI, but it does not alter the dataset schema or the query logic stored in the service. While gateway issues can cause refresh failures, they are unrelated to the schema mismatch report users see, as the gateway never interprets or stores column definitions. This action might help a connectivity outage, not a metadata update.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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