In PowerBI what is the difference between Import and DirectQuery after Publish

Question

In PowerBI Desktop, when I try to get Data, I have 2 options Import and DirectQuery. I understand that Import would import all the data first so it takes longer to load and start your work, but DirectQuery takes only a preview so maybe it downloads only the database schema. DirectQuery also doesn't support all the transformation functions.I read the differences on

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-desktop-use-directquery/

But I was not able to understand, that these differences were applicable only when we are developing the report? Once the report is published for users to use, powerBI would keep querying the original database everytime the report is requested? Because we used 'Import' option when we getData does that mean a cache of the data would be stored in PowerBI cache which has a fixed refresh schedule, but if we used the 'DirectQuery' option PowerBI would query the original database?

Answer 1

In direct query mode the data always stays in the source database. Each interaction with the report will send a query to the source DB, that query will run there and only the results will be returned. In cached mode, you'll run a query that returns a large chunk of data. That data is stored in a cache and all interactions with the report will run queries against that cache. You will need to periodically update that cache if you want to see the latest data.