Forum Discussion
Microsoft EmployeeUsage Metrics for Dashboard/Report Authors Feedback
Hello everyone!
Please use this thread to leave feedback or questions about our new usage metrics feature for dashboard/report authors.
Update [10/5/2017]: we have successfully rolled out a batch of performance optimizations to the usage metrics feature! You should now see your usage metrics reports loading much more quickly. You should also no longer see the "ran out of resources" error on your visuals. Please let us know if you're seeing otherwise.
Update [8/30/2017]: we're rolling out updates to usage metrics to surface the names of the users who are viewing and sharing dashboards and reports! The rollout will complete by end of the week. See our blog post for more information!
Before we start, be sure to check out the documentation for more information about the feature.
Note also that we’ve created the following UserVoice items for improvements already on the backlog. Please cast your vote below to help us prioritize our investments going forward.
- Usage metrics show the exact e-mail address/names of users who access dashboards/reports [Done!]
- Dataset usage metrics for content creators
- Usage metrics for Power BI apps
- Usage metrics retains data for >90 days
- Improve usage metrics report performance [Done!]
- Usage metrics programmatic access
- Admins can control which users' identities are picked up by usage metrics
Looking forward to hearing from you,
-Sirui
36 Replies
samdthompsonMemorable Member
It would be great to see the user ID of who has viewed.
sirui_sunHello! Thanks for the feedback. This is in plan for the next version of usage metrics.
Please vote on the following UserVoice idea to help us further prioritize: Usage metrics show the exact e-mail address/names of users who access dashboards/reports
SHHargroveAdvocate II
Knowing the names of the viewers is a primary concern for us. I see the report contains a distinct count of the users, but not their emails/names. Can this be added please?
Unsure what the cause of this problem. These are steps I followed:
- Have multiple datasets in an App Workspace, each with 1 report. Each report has multiple tabs
- Get Usage Report and select File -> Save As
- Produce new Report on this data set with
- 'Rows' as 'Reports'[DisplayName], then 'Views'[ReportPage]'
- Columns as 'Views'[Date]
- Value as [ViewersCount]
- Filtered data to only show metrics when [Date] is on or after 31 May 2017.
This method worked great for me this morning, I had a matrix showing all of the information i needed. I saved this report and let some managers know.
I checked again this afternoon and the matrix errors stating it had exceeded the allowable resources.
patrickoliverAdvocate III
It would be good if Power BI admins could create a similar report covering all content on the Power BI tenant which could then be shared with all users on the tenant. At the moment we are restricted to usage reporting at the workspace level.
We have developed an automated method of pulling the O365 Power BI audit logs. When I evaluate the logs for ViewReport or ViewDashboard for a specific report or dashboard, the numbers don't align with the usage metrics. I am consistently seeing higher unique user and view counts in the usage metrics compared to the audit logs. Can you explain the discrepancy? Which are more accurate?
I've noticed this issue as well on my end. The usage metrics do not appear to tie to the Audit Log details. Please advise why this would be the case.
vaibhav_oscAdvocate I
zthill Was wondering if the method of pulling O365 audit logs gives access to who/when accessed the reports as well..
I was trying to use the inbuilt usage metrics but the details doesn't seem to be enough as well as the performance is quite poor and on certain occasions the visual doesn't even load. Hence, I'm looking at alternative ways to implement this.
Yes it does. You have to use PowerShell to automate pulling the logs
More info can be found here https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-admin-auditing/
Hey there! I'm currently looking into how to pull the logs automatically, but I'm just at the beginning. Can you share how you automatically pull the data from Power BI? That would be really helpful!
Many thanks ahead, Chris
FYI - we followed the information provided here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-admin-auditing/
We have a PowerShell script that executes on a scheduler job daily to extract the Power BI audit log records and writes them to a file on a shared folder where they are picked up for processing. Note, sometimes it takes more than 24 hours before the audit data is available so we had to code around this to allow for a flexible lag.
We then wrote a custom Power BI report that joins the account information pulled from these audit logs to internal data sources so we can show data at multiple levels to track usage and adoption - by department, by title, etc.
RoytjooThanks for the nice update, however in our case it's so slow/ takes al lot of time to process, that the user visual times out with the out of memory. It would be quite beneficial if it works properly, even beter would of course be to see the statistics over the organization, and filter on workspace/ report/ user etc.
Thanks!Hi,
is there a way to show the Subscriptions for a Dashboard in the Usage Metric report?
Best Regards
Any thoughts on why the usage metrics for a published app would not be showing users which have definitely logged on and viewed a dashboard?
Anecdotally it seems like iOS usage isn't picked up consistently.
I'm pleased to report that my usage reports, that were previously timing out, are now working as I would have expected them to. Great work sirui_sun and team!
- asjones
Helper V
Is there a way or an existing idea post out there (before I create it) to have an option to merge Dashboard and Report Usage Metrics? Soemtimes we look at the dashboard vs report and if they are much the same except for dirll down options. Combining the usage numbers often would be helpful (but sitll breaking them out for other needs).
asjones If someone creates that idea, I would like to vote for it!!!
- erhodes
Been waiting for this for a long time, but for some reason I don't see the 'Views by User Table' when opening the Usage Metrics for a report or dashboard. Additionally, when I 'Save As' and 'Edit' the Usage Metrics report i don't have a data set for users in the Fields Nav bar as per the Blog post on the 30th.
Anyone else experiencing the same issue?
- sirui_sun
Hold tight! As the blog post mentions, we're still rolling out this feature worldwide. It should be available everywhere by the end of this week.
sirui_sunim super excited about the usage metrics now showing Users. The feature is now available to me, as i can see it in a new workspace i've created. However, when i've removed my usage report in a workspace that has it already, when i create a new usage report it doesn't have the new user table. Its almost like the usage report data is sitting behind the scenes somewhere.
Is there a way to clear that out properlly and have it rebuild? I've tried delete my saved Usage dataset and click on the 'Usage Metrics' icon
EDIT: I've checked this again now on a Monday (this post written on a Friday). Running the metrics now produces the correct table. Some sort of cache purging must occur periodically. If anyone else finds this in the future, waiting is all i needed to do. I did delete my metrics, but i'm unsure whether that is required or not.
Great addition with the per user statistics!
Unfortunately the dataset performance is really slow and becomes almost useless when response time is 20-40 seconds when interacting with the reports.
I hope this is on the top of the agenda for the development team since these kind of auditing is highly requested for many customers and can add a high value when justifying investments into Power BI in the organization.
Br,
Magnus
- sirui_sun
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Improving the performance of the usage metrics reports is at the top of our priority. Work is in-progress which should significantly improve performance. We should have an update by end of September or October - stay tuned.
Separately - unfortunately there are no current plans to add email subscriptions to usage metrics, though I would encourage you to create/vote on the idea at ideas.powerbi.com
Thanks,
-Sirui
Hi Sirui,
I would really like to see which users subscribed to my reports and dashboard. Therfore I voted for this idea:
Best regards
Cornelius
