Historical Usage Metric Report data

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm exploring the Usage Metric Report at the moment, and so far I have discovered that it is possible to connect to the data source through PBI Desktop which is amazing, gives us lots of options in terms of customising the data views to suit our own needs.

My main stumbling block at the moment is how to build up a repository of historical data to work with. The report only covers the last 30 days I think? I would like to be able to show change over a longer time period as evidence of value add within our organisation. Does anyone know how I can do this? I can't see any way of downloading directly to Excel. I have seen that you can save a copy of the report with a different name but I'm not sure if that 'freezes' the data as such, or whether the report data would just keep on refreshing daily.

At the moment the only workaround I can think of is to build the dataset I want in a pbix file using a matrix visual and then download the data manually from there into Excel, which I can then use as the datasource for a different pbix file (and build up the collated data gradually). That seems like quite a mad solution though! There must be an easier way, can anyone advise on how I can do this? I feel like I'm missing something obvious... Many thanks.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @GilbertQ  - the solution looks a bit beyond my access permission level but I will share it with my more techy colleagues and hopefully we will be able to get a process set up to capture this data! Many thanks for your help.

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

What you will need to do is to use the Power BI Activity Log, which you will need to download and store on your own storage to keep the history over time

Here are more details on what the activity log is and how to download the logs: Track user activities in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs