Capturing Usage Metrics from external Customers using embedded Power BI

[FritzVPL]

We use an embedded Power BI dashboard on our website that our external customers access. I believe our environment was set up using 3rd party embedding where our customers do not require a Power BI license. We pay for capacity through Azure. 

The issue we are having is we would like to view the usage by customer however in the Power BI usage reporting all external customers are coming through as a single guid so we are unable to distinguish which customers are viewing what. When our developers access the embedded dashboard the usage comes through fine and we can see which user/what pages our developers accessed.

Does anyone know why our external customers are coming through as a single userid and how we can set this up differently so we can view their username? Is it possible with 3rd party embedding? 

I have explored the Azure Monitor tool as a solution but it seems this is going to only work with premium workspaces initially. 

Any insight on this issue would be much appreciated. 

[Anonymous]

For the new modern workspaces, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-modern-usage-metrics, does the limitation in obtaining usage metrics for "apps own data" scenarios still apply? 

The docs mention that Power BI Embedded is supported, but do not mention the "app owns data" scenario explicitly.

[v-rzhou-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @FritzVPL 

From your statement, I know you use app owns data to embed reports to customers.

So your customer don't need to sign in Power BI(don't need to access report by AAD token), they can access reports by embed token.

Currently Power BI Usage Metrics doesn't support us to trace embedded reports.

For reference: Monitor usage metrics

Note:

Usage metrics track usage of reports that are embedded in SharePoint Online. However, usage metrics don't track dashboards and reports embedded via the “user owns credentials” or “app owns credentials” flow. Usage metrics also don't track usage of reports embedded via publish to web.

Best Regards,

Rico Zhou

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. 

[FritzVPL]

Hello @v-rzhou-msft , Could you please take another look at this support ticket and let me know if usage metrics are still not supported for our "user owns credentials" or "app owns credentials" scenario?

We really would like to track usage by customer and this has been a huge pain point for us. If this is still not supported and if you have any other reccomendations on how we can accomplish this it would be greatly appreciated.

[MarkGS]

Hello @FritzVPL , I'm sorry I can't help you with your issue, but you might be able to help me out instead 😇 I've been searching online whether it is possible to get user stats from an embedded power bi dashboard. And with embedded I mean an external website where users can go to and login with an external account to view the dashboard without the need for a Power BI license. So based on your question, I would say you have already figured out how to do this, you just have the additional need to have the user login in there, which I don't need per se. On the Microsoft Learn page it is stated that User Stats are currently not supported for embedded dashboards, so that seems to be incorrect if you have been able to get these user stats for your embedded report. If it's not too much trouble I would really appreciate it if you could let me know if you have indeed been able to get these user stats and whether you had to do anything else than just go to the report in the workspace on Power BI Service and view the usage metrics report. Thanks in advance for your response! 

[Anonymous]

Hello @v-rzhou-msft  have the same question. Using app owns data pattern and keen to understand if usage metrics can be generated based on the actual user viewing the report. The embed token contains the username. If it's not out of the box, is there a way to create a custom usage metrics report with username in the embed token? Thanks