When server paging is enabled, in addition to using the options in transport-read to set the total, are there any methods like 'dataSource.data()' to set the total?
hope this information will be helpful. If your scenario is somehow different please elaborate it a little bit so we could be more helpful with a possible solution.
Not quite sure if this is what you need but the dataSource has a total method as described here - https://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/data/datasource/methods/total#total.
If the read is not triggered after the update we could trigger it with the read method - https://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/data/datasource/methods/read.
hope this information will be helpful. If your scenario is somehow different please elaborate it a little bit so we could be more helpful with a possible solution.