Thanks to all the great feedback we’ve received from our recent admin survey and from the Power BI Ideas feedback site. The Power BI Premium Capacity Metrics (version 1.10) app provides a comprehensive view of workload operations such as dataset and dataflow refreshes, dataset evictions, dataset queries, paginated report data retrieval/execution, and system metrics in the capacity for the past seven days. This all provides a more in-depth view into the health of a capacity.
Summary of the changes:
(A) Removed Filter page from the report and added the ability to filter by capacity Id and dates to each of the datasets, paginated reports and dataflows workload pages.
(B) Report displays the last refresh time (UTC)
(C) We are happy to support cross-highlight and aggregation at both the datasets and workspace level. The admin can now easily visual the cumulative resource consumption at the workspace level to make data driven decisions with migration or assignment of workspaces to a capacity.
(D) In the Query Waits tab (image below) , the query wait time distribution histograms is bucketed by query wait time split into hourly intervals reported in milliseconds as <= 50ms , 50-100ms , 100-200ms , 200-400ms 400ms-1sec , 1 sec-5 sec and > 5 seconds intervals. Long wait times could be a sign that a capacity running hot. It may also mean that the datasets themselves could benefit from optimizations and further investigation is needed.
Installing the app
Let’s get started by installing the service app. If you have a previous version of the app already installed, it’s best to delete it from your apps and then hit CTRL-F5 to refresh to avoid confusion with versions.
The app can be installed by searching for “Power BI Premium Capacity Metrics” in the Power BI apps or by clicking here to get it now.
Known issues during installation of the app
We are working on making improvements in the current service app installation experience. You may experience some delay during installation. We highly recommend you hit F5 on the app page and wait for the refresh of the report to complete before accessing the app. You can confirm the refresh status by checking the refresh history on the dataset settings.
After a couple of minutes since installation, if the screen appears blank as below, please hit F5 to refresh the page to get the dashboard, report and dataset links.
Additional steps to use the Premium Capacity Monitoring app with Power BI Embedded
This same app can be used to monitor any A SKU capacities you may have in Power BI Embedded. They will appear in the report provided you’re an admin of the capacity. Refresh of the report can fail unless you grant certain permissions to Power BI on your A SKUs. This can be done by opening your capacity in the Azure portal, clicking on Access control (IAM) and adding the “Power BI Premium” app to the Reader role. If you’re unable to find the app by name, you can also add it by its client Id: cb4dc29f-0bf4-402a-8b30-7511498ed654.
Moving forward
Now that you have the app installed, you can see metrics about all the capacities in your organization for which you are an admin. You can now make more informed decisions and more effectively manage the premium capacities, workspaces and datasets in your organization. These metrics are just the start. More detailed metrics and tooling will become available in the following weeks and months. And be sure to submit your ideas for more any suggestions.
Learn more about what Power BI premium is, monitoring premium capacities and how Power BI Premium works.
Check out “Managing Microsoft Power BI Premium capacities to your entire organization” YouTube session by Josh Caplan and Adam Saxton at Ignite 2018.