Node daemon (Talleod) version 0.4.6 introduced new field in response to “getblocktemplate” API call. Field “num_transactions” now contain number of transactions included in the block template excluding the coinbase transaction. This can be directly used by mining pool to decide when the current block template might need to be refreshed…
Mining pool can either refresh the block template when the field value changes from 0 to non-zero, or when it changes from one non-zero to any other non-zero value while block height stays the same.