Forum Discussion
Semantic Model Views and User Count
Hi Ashish,
The Usage Metrics report is built from report render events only, so Analyze in Excel traffic will never show there because AIX connects straight to the model XMLA endpoint and does not open a report page.
Two reliable ways to get what you want:
1. Fabric Workspace Monitoring (preview, requires an F capacity). Enable it on the workspace, select Semantic Model as the item type, and every DAX query that hits the model lands in an Eventhouse (KQL database). The SemanticModelLogs table gives you the user UPN, timestamp, application/source, duration, and the DAX text. This includes Analyze in Excel, SSMS, Tabular Editor, report queries, and any XMLA client. Point a Power BI report at that KQL DB and you have the user count, active users, and query volume you listed.
2. Power BI admin activity log (works at Pro too). Either from the Purview portal or scripted with Get-PowerBIActivityEvent, filter on the AnalyzedByExternalApplication operation. Each entry has UserId, DatasetId, and workload, so you can group by user per model. The retention is 30 days from the API and 90 days from the UI, so if you need longer history, dump it nightly into a Lakehouse or SQL table.
If the model is on PPU or a Premium/Fabric capacity, Workspace Monitoring is the much better experience because the data is granular and already structured for querying.
If this helped, a thumbs up and marking it as the accepted solution would be appreciated.
Best,
Shai Karmani
Solution SageHi ashishkr10006, the audit log route already covers who connected, so I will add the option that gives you query counts, which the audit events do not. Workspace monitoring is the closest fit. Turn it on for the workspace, which creates a monitoring Eventhouse, and the semantic model logs table records every query event with the user, the application name such as Excel, the duration and the CPU time. A simple KQL query that groups by ApplicationName and User for the last 30 days gives you total queries and active users, and filtering on the Excel application name isolates Analyze in Excel traffic. If you are not able to enable that, the Fabric Capacity Metrics app also shows interactive operations per semantic model, which is a good proxy for total views because every Analyze in Excel refresh or pivot interaction is an interactive query. For a quick one off look, SQL Server Profiler or DAX Studio Server Timings connected over XMLA can capture queries live, but that only works while you are tracing. For the final report, I would join the audit log export for the user list with the workspace monitoring table for volume, and publish it as a small usage model so you are not re-running queries each time.
AI-assisted drafting: AI was used to help structure and phrase this response. I reviewed and validated the technical content before posting.