Monitoring Power BI

There are a number of options for monitoring Power BI that I wanted to mention:

Performance analyzer: Find out how each of your report elements, such as visuals and DAX formulas, are performing. Using the Performance Analyzer, you can see and record logs that measure how each of your report elements performs when users interact with them, and which aspects of their performance are most (or least) resource intensive. This is accomplished by clicking a “Start recording” button and interacting with the elements you want to test. More info at Use Performance Analyzer to examine report element performance.

Usage Metrics: Enables you to discover how your reports are being used throughout your organization and who’s using them. You can also identify high-level performance issues. To run, from the workspace content list, open the context menu of the report and select View usage metrics report. Alternatively, open the report, then open the context menu on the command bar, and then select Usage metrics. More info at Monitor usage metrics in the new workspace experience. Please be aware of the upcoming Admin UI tenant usage metrics improvement in June – see Admin Usage Metrics.

Query Diagnostics: Allows you to determine what Power Query is doing during authoring time. It allows you to understand what sort of queries you are emitting, what slowdowns you might run into during authoring refresh, and what kind of background events are happening. To run, in the Power Query Editor ribbon choose ‘Start Diagnostics’ or ‘Diagnose Step’ under the Tools menu. More info at Query Diagnostics

Power BI Premium Metrics app: Use the app to manage the health and capacity of your Power BI Premium subscription. The app provides the most in-depth information into how your capacities are performing. To install the app, check out Monitor Premium capacities with the app and Introducing Power BI Premium Capacity Metrics App as a template app. More info at Power BI Premium Metrics app. Also check out What is Power BI Premium?

Monitor Premium capacities: For a higher level overview of average use metrics over the last seven days for Power BI Premium, you can use the Admin portal, which now includes a refresh summary. To access, the metrics, go to the Admin portal in your Power BI premium account, click on “Capacity settings”, then click on the premium capacity you wish to see, and you will then see the Health tab. The “Refresh summary” is located just below “Capacity settings”. To learn more about monitoring in the portal, see Monitor Premium capacities in the Admin portal.

Data Profiling: Easily find the issues with your imported data from data sources into Power BI. This is done via the Power Query Editor: Under the View tab in the Data Preview Section check, the following data profiling functionalities – Column quality, Column distribution, Column profile. See Data Profiling in Power BI (Power BI Update April 2019) and Data Profiling, Quality & Distribution in Power BI / Power Query.

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Power BI Activity Log: Enables Power BI service admins to track user and admin activities within a Power BI tenant. See Introducing the Power BI Activity Log and Track user activities in Power BI.

(Above image from Paul Turley’s Getting Started with the New Power BI Activity Log API).

Microsoft Cloud App Security real time user activity monitoring: Help protect your Power BI reports, data, and services from unintended leaks or breaches. With Cloud App Security, you create conditional access policies for your organization’s data, using real-time session controls in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), that help to ensure your Power BI analytics are secure. Once these policies have been set, administrators can monitor user access and activity, perform real-time risk analysis, and set label-specific controls. See Using Microsoft cloud app security controls in Power BI (preview)

Data protection metrics report: A dedicated report that Power BI administrators can use to monitor and track data sensitivity label usage and adoption in their tenant. To view the report, go to Settings > Admin portal, and choose Protection metrics (preview). For this report to work you first must enable data sensitivity labels in Power BI and then Apply data sensitivity labels in Power BI (to dashboards, reports, datasets, and dataflows). See Data protection metrics report (preview).

Dashboard performance inspector: Helps you inspect and diagnose why the loading time is poor. You’ll see alerts that identify the potential issue and suggest a fix. Give it a try by simply navigating to any dashboard that you have edit permissions to, opening the ellipsis menu, and choosing Performance Inspector.