Data Freshness by SmartVisuals

Every reader knows how fresh the numbers are, in their own time zone. SmartVisuals Last Refresh & Data Freshness shows "Refreshed 3 hours ago (today 06:04) - Succeeded - Data through yesterday" on any report page, keeps ageing while the report is open, and says why when the data is not fresh.

Your time zone, not the server's. Store the refresh time in UTC and the browser converts it for each reader, daylight saving included, with the zone named in the reader's language (CEST, EDT or GMT+2). DAX cannot do this: NOW() and UTCNOW() run in the service's zone.

Three inputs, all tested. Refreshed At says when the model refreshed, Data Through says what the data covers, and Last Status says whether the last run worked. A model that refreshed on time but loaded nothing since Tuesday is stale, a blank Data Through is flagged, and a failed run marks the source stale, with the reason printed.

• States you can read without colour: Fresh, Ageing, Stale and Unknown, each with its own icon shape and word.
• Business time by default: a quiet weekend is not stale. Working days, optional working hours and holidays count; calendar time is one click away.
• The refresh schedule: type your schedule and the visual knows when a run is late ("the 06:00 refresh is late") and when the next one is due, skipping holidays.
• Last refresh status: bind Succeeded / Failed text or a numeric code (exit codes, SQL Agent, HTTP) and it shows next to the time.
• Many sources: bind a load log and every source gets its own state, reason, status and thresholds, from the format pane or from your data.
• Five layouts: badge, header strip, corner chip, status card and source list, or Auto. One-line layouts shed parts instead of cutting text; the list wraps long reasons and the tooltip has them in full.
• Exact times on hover: your time, UTC, the storage zone, the exact age and the business-time age.
• Honest when frozen: the absolute time is always printed next to the relative one, and an As-of stamp is added when the visual renders without interaction.
• Guards against mistakes: a refresh time or data date in the future, or a value the visual cannot read, is flagged and never shown as fresh; a zone abbreviation without daylight saving (EST) is refused with a hint for the author.

Features:

• Data point selection and cross-filtering: click a source in the source list, or press Enter, to filter the rest of the report; Ctrl or Shift adds more (multiple selection), Esc clears, right-click opens the context menu.
• Highlight and bookmarks: follows highlights from other visuals and keeps its selection in bookmarks.
• Tooltips, including report page tooltips: add your own fields to Tooltips or use a report tooltip page.
• Data-driven state colours: each source is coloured by rules on its own data (Ageing After and Stale After measures per source, Data Through, Last Status), with a colour per state in the format pane.
• Responsive to visual size: Auto picks the layout that fits the space and text can fit the box.
• Power BI theme support: four themes, or Use report theme colors.
• Localization: format pane and visual text in 20 languages, from Spanish and Polish to Japanese and Chinese; dates, relative times and zone names follow the reader's locale.
• Setup help in the visual: with no field bound it shows the Power Query recipe.

Accessibility: full keyboard navigation (Tab to the badge or card; arrows, Home, End, Enter, Space and Esc in the source list) with a visible focus ring. The Accessibility card sets the focus outline colour and width and a minimum text size. States never rely on colour alone, the badge, card and every source carry a full-sentence screen-reader label, state changes are announced, and Windows high contrast is followed. Nothing animates.

New in 1.0.1.0: 20 languages, the Accessibility card, and an optional Use report theme colors switch (off by default, ignored in high contrast).

Getting started: add a one-row Power Query table with DateTimeZone.RemoveZone(DateTimeZone.UtcNow()) and a measure MAX of it, plus a Data Through measure such as MAX of your order date. The landing page and the sample report show both recipes.

Free, with nothing leaving your report: no licence, no watermark, no network calls, no telemetry. The free version is the whole visual. Part of the SmartVisuals family.

Documentation: https://smartvisuals.io/visuals/data-freshness
Support: https://smartvisuals.io/support#data-freshness
Release notes: https://smartvisuals.io/changelog#data-freshness