Collecting Analytics Data from a Power BI Custom Connector

[Suraj_Ncircle]

Hi,

I have developed a custom connector for Power BI Desktop and would like to collect analytics data to monitor its usage and performance. Specifically, I want to capture:

• Query execution time
• Connector failure data
• Details of users (e.g., user IDs or anonymized data) who are using the connector

To achieve this, I attempted to post the data to a server by sending the execution time of queries. However, I noticed that the server gets called multiple times, and the same execution time is printed every time, which is not the expected behavior.

Is there a proper way to implement analytics collection in a Power BI custom connector? Could you provide any guidance, best practices, or documentation to resolve these issues and ensure accurate data collection?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Suraj_Ncircle]

Hi  @Anonymous
Thank you for your response.Based on your response, I have the following questions:

1. I noticed that the Diagnostic.Trace function only logs data if tracing is enabled in the Power BI Desktop application. My requirement is to automatically send analytic data to a analytic platform to track ussage analytics. Is there a way to achieve this?
2. Is there any way in Power Query to send log files directly to a analytic platform” e.g. (microsoft analytics thru an API)?

[Anonymous]

Hi @Suraj_Ncircle 

You maybe able to use the Diagnostics.Trace function to output trace information to the log.

Please refer to the following link:

TripPin 8 - Adding Diagnostics - Power Query | Microsoft Learn

Diagnostics.Trace - PowerQuery M | Microsoft Learn

You can also seek professional advice in the discussions section of the official Power Query SDK public repository:

microsoft/vscode-powerquery-sdk · Discussions · GitHub

Best Regards,
Jarvis Tang
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