Part of proper governance in Power BI means taking proper care of what goes on in your tenant. Here's a list of areas you need to watch for and some helpful telemetry to start collecting.
3. Angel Abundez
VP Solutions Architecture, DesignMind
Power BI and MSBI User Group Leader
BI Consultant for 9 Years, Been in BI since 2007
VP, Project Manager, Mentor
Soccer Coach, Musician, Father of 4
4. Session Objectives & Agenda
What should you Monitor in your Power BI tenant?
What tools exist?
Tooling you can build, or eventually buy
5. Power BI system
governance
critical reports, and/or potential ownership transfer
validation of security and compliance
report rendering speed
potential flaws
in data integrity or even overlap in effort
7. Current Admin Tools
Examples of tools admins use today to monitor their workspaces and/or tenants:
Usage Metrics in Admin Portal
Usage Metrics in Workspaces or Individual Reports
Workspace view in Admin Portal
Refresh History in Datasets
User Security of Workspaces (New and Classic)
User Security of Apps
Gateways and Datasources in Power BI
Personal and Enterprise Gateways in the Power Platform
https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/ext/DataGateways
Premium Capacity App (for Premium customers only)
Performance Analyzer
8. Admin Tools are improving
Admin Portal received new Workspaces page
12/2018
Premium Capacity Metrics App updated Feb-
2019
Personal Gateways visible Apr-2019
But
9. there are Gaps
WHAT REPORTS AND
DATASETS ARE OUT
THERE?
DO CONSUMERS AND
AUTHORS HAVE
CORRECT ACCESS?
HOW ARE PRO
WORKSPACES BEING
UTILIZED?
HOWS PERFORMANCE
LOOKING ON DATA
REFRESH?
11. Cataloging your Tenant
Catalog the Power BI Service
Catalog Licenses and Security with Azure AD (not MSOnline)
Collect O365 Audit Logs
Automate and Publish
12. What Youll Need
Powershell 5.0 or greater
.NET Framework 4.5 or higher
MicrosoftPowerBIMgmt Module
Power BI Service Administrator role or Office 365 Global Administrator
https://github.com/aabundez/powerbi-
admin/blob/master/PBI_Inventory.ps1
13. https://github.com/Microsoft/powerbi-
powershell/blob/master/ROADMAP.md
Cmdlets
Install-Module -Name MicrosoftPowerBIMgmt
Login-PowerBI
*Get-PowerBIWorkspace
*Get-PowerBIReport
*Get-PowerBIDataset
*Get-PowerBIDatasource
*Get-PowerBIDashboard
*Get-PowerBITile
Invoke-PowerBIRestMethod
Resolve-PowerBIError -Last
PowerShell Cmdlets
*Test to be sure they work. Known Issue.
14. REST APIs
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi
Power BI Assets
Data Source
Example: SQL, File, SharePoint List etc
DataSet
Power BI Data Models
Report
Canvas with multiple pages
Dashboard
Arrangement of Tiles
Tiles
Visual Element with title
Groups - Workspaces
Container to group related item and manage permission
Gateway
On-prem data source connector
Groups
Data Source-1 Data Source-2
Tile
Gateways
16. Automating and Publishing
Run Powershell from a Server
Windows Task Scheduler
Run Powershell Runbooks in Azure Automation (Serverless)
17. Azure Automation
Securely store O365 Service Account credentials
Cheaply run nightly jobs on schedule
Kick-off from other tools such as ADF
https://github.com/aabundez/powerbi-
admin/blob/master/PBI_Inventory_Azure%20_Automation.ps1
19. There Are Limitations
No Dataset size
Deleted Groups (Workspaces) are returned
APIs can change without notice
Need $top parameter now in query
New [IsOrphaned] and [Users] attributes in Get-PowerBIWorkspace cmdlet
Security on O365 Audit Logs
20. Troubleshooting Tips
Use Fiddler to get better error descriptions
Use Powershell ISE or VS Code
There is a Powershell test website
Editor's Notes
There are some elements that we recommend tracking in a Power BI governance programs:
System Usage: Including user access frequency, as well as popular datasets, models and reports. Also includes auditing of publishing actions. This information can be used for security and compliance, identification of support needs, identification of critical reports, and/or potential ownership transfer opportunities.
Security: Report sharing activities and row-level security defined in the Power BI Service, as well as ownership of datasets, reports, and dashboards. This information is important for validation of security and compliance. There are three main approaches to sharing with others:
Sharing a read-only dashboard from a workspace
Including a colleague as a member of an app workspace
Including a colleague as a recipient of a published app.
Report Performance: A critical feature to enable adoption is report rendering speed. In many cases, a well-designed, accurate report is so slow that the perceived value to the users is diminished.
Data Source Usage: Including data sources utilized, data refresh operations, data model sizes, as well as calculations. This information can be used to identify potential flaws in data integrity or even overlap in effort. It is also important to monitor growth of models which have data imported, given the maximum size limit of 250 MB.
Workspace Management got a facelift in the Power BI Admin portal: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/workspace-management-in-the-admin-portal/
Monitoring Premium capacities is always improving: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-admin-premium-monitor-capacity
https://dataveld.com/2019/01/31/what-is-an-orphaned-workspace-in-power-bi/