Workaround for creating alerts from the Power BI Capacity Metrics App

[zack_data]

Hi Cummunity,

As I am a data analist for a large organisation, there are times that the service is busy and we go over the capacity for our Power BI Premium lisence.

I monitor this by using the Power BI Capacity Metrics App. I do this to make sure I can see the status and whether users can expect any delay's in their reports, or can't see their report at all. In order to get notice of this in a timely matter, I wanted to set an alert on the visual in the capacity metrics app when capacity goes over 90%. 

However, Fabric Activator has a limitation that creating alerts from the Fabric or Power BI Capacity Metrics app isn't supported. Do you guys know any workarounds or other methods where I can be notified when the Total CU Usage % goes over a certain threshold?

Thanks

[zack_data]

Hi @ibarrau 

Thanks for your response! I have tried it out but it seems that although I set the notification when it reaches 90% of capacity, I only get emails for when it reaches 100%. 

Have you experienced the same?

I will try to now only choose the option for when it reaches 90% instead of also ticking the box for when it reaches 100%. Maybe then it will work

[ibarrau]

Checking the box that let you add a value for getting the notification should make it happen. I would recommend a smaller value. 90% is too close to 100%. It could happen that each time you read the mail of 90% is almost 100% and will overload. Try 80-85% instead. That's just an opinion, it's not a rule. Do whatever you feel better.

Regards

[zack_data]

Yes. I see that setting it to a lower value worked. 

Cheers

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Thank you @ibarrau and @rohit1991 for your response.

Hi @zack_data,

We would like to inquire if the solution offered by @ibarrau and @rohit1991  has resolved your issue. If you have discovered an alternative approach, we encourage you to share it with the community to assist others facing similar challenges.

Should you find the response helpful, please mark it as the accepted solution and add kudos. This recognition benefits other members seeking solutions to related queries.

Thank you.

[rohit1991]

Hi @zack_data ,

You’re right that Fabric Activator doesn’t support alerts directly from the Power BI Capacity Metrics App, but there are a few workarounds to get notified when Total CU Usage % exceeds a certain threshold. One approach is to export the Capacity Metrics data to a separate Power BI report where you can set up alerts using Power BI’s native data-driven alerts on dashboards. You could use Power Automate to trigger an email or Teams notification when the CU Usage % surpasses 90%. Another option is to leverage API calls to extract capacity usage data periodically and push it into a Power BI dataset or a monitoring tool that supports alerts. If you're using Log Analytics, you can also set up a Kusto query to track capacity usage and create alerts via Azure Monitor.

[ibarrau · Accepted solution]

Hi. This kind of notification is actually a Capacity Admin configuration. When you open admin portal and go to capacity settings as a Capacity Administrator. You can find a setting for notifications like this:

That might solve the need for getting notify when a % is reached.

I hope that helps,