Power BI monitors
Power BI monitors are pre-configured monitors to help you quickly begin monitoring common and critical aspects of your Power BI environment. For more information, see the Monitors documentation.
Orphaned Power BI Dataflows
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI dataflows where the user who owns the dataflow has been inactive for 30 days or longer. The purpose is to prevent the accumulation of unmanaged or forgotten data assets that can consume resources and pose governance risks.
Potential Impact
Increased resource consumption, cluttered workspaces, difficulty in auditing data lineage, potential for stale or inaccurate data being used in reports, and overall governance challenges.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the dataflow owner: Reach out to the listed owner to confirm if the dataflow is still actively used or needed by any team or process.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is no longer active or responsible, reassign ownership to an appropriate, active team member or service account.
Archive or delete: If the dataflow is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if a retention policy exists) or deleting it to reduce clutter, free up capacity, and maintain workspace hygiene.
Orphaned Power BI Reports
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI reports where the user who owns the report has been inactive for 30 days or longer. The purpose is to ensure that all critical Power BI reports have active ownership, facilitating timely updates and issue resolution.
Potential Impact
Stale or inaccurate reports being consumed, user confusion, wasted storage and processing resources, and a general decline in data governance and trust in reporting.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the report owner: Get in touch with the listed owner to ascertain if the report is still actively used or required by stakeholders.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is inactive or no longer responsible, reassign ownership to a current, active team member.
Archive or delete: If the report is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if appropriate) or deleting it to streamline content and improve user experience.
Orphaned Power BI Datasets
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI semantic models whose designated owner has had no recorded activity within the Power BI service for the last 30 days. The purpose is to maintain a clean and efficient Power BI environment by ensuring all semantic models have active ownership.
Potential Impact
Accumulation of unnecessary data, potential for outdated data being used, increased storage costs, security risks from unmanaged data access, and overall degradation of data governance.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the semantic model owner: Reach out to the listed owner to confirm if the dataset is still actively used or needed by any reports or dashboards.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is inactive or no longer responsible, reassign ownership to an appropriate, active team member or service account.
Archive or delete: If the dataset is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if applicable) or deleting it to reduce clutter, free up capacity, and maintain data hygiene.
User Activity From Outside of the USA
BI Pillar
Security
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when Power BI assets (reports, dashboards, datasets) are accessed from IP addresses located outside the United States. The purpose is to enhance data security and ensure compliance with geographical access policies.
Potential Impact
Data breaches, non-compliance with data residency regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA), unauthorized data access, and compromised intellectual property.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Review access patterns: Immediately investigate the specific user, asset, and time of access. Determine if international activity is expected (e.g., remote employees, legitimate business travel).
Validate business justification: For any international access, confirm that the user has a valid and documented business justification for accessing assets from that location.
Audit permissions: Review the user's group memberships and individual permissions to ensure they align with the principle of least privilege and company security policies. Remove access if unauthorized activity is confirmed.
Power BI User High Hourly Exports
BI Pillar
Security
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a single user exports 5 or more Power BI reports or dashboards within a one-hour period. The purpose is to identify potential data exfiltration attempts or excessive data downloads that might violate data governance policies.
Potential Impact
Unauthorized data disclosure, data exfiltration, compliance breaches, and potential misuse of sensitive business information.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Verify business purpose: Investigate the user and the specific reports/dashboards exported. Confirm that the individual has a legitimate business need and authorization to export data at this volume.
Review exported content: If possible, review the content of the exported reports/dashboards to assess data sensitivity.
Adjust access/permissions: If the activity is deemed unauthorized or excessive, adjust the user's permissions to restrict export capabilities or remove access if necessary.
Educate users: If the activity is legitimate but unusual, consider educating the user on best practices for data access and alternative methods for data consumption.
Power BI Report Exported from Outside of the USA
Attribute
Description
BI Pillar
Security
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when Power BI reports are exported from IP addresses located outside the United States. The purpose is to monitor and control the outbound flow of data from Power BI, ensuring compliance with data residency and security policies.
Potential Impact
Data leakage, non-compliance with data protection regulations, unauthorized distribution of proprietary information, and potential legal repercussions.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Validate business justification: Verify that users exporting reports from outside the U.S. have a valid and documented business justification for doing so.
Review workspace access: Examine the workspace where the report resides and review the access permissions for all users, particularly those with export capabilities.<br/>Audit group permissions: Ensure that group permissions are strictly aligned with the principle of least privilege, restricting export functionality to only those who absolutely require it.
Implement data loss prevention (DLP): Consider implementing Power BI DLP policies to prevent sensitive data from being exported.
Stale Power BI Apps
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI apps that have not been modified (e.g., content updates, settings changes) in the last 30 days. The purpose is to promote a clean and efficient Power BI environment by identifying and managing outdated or unused applications.
Potential Impact
Cluttered app workspaces, user confusion, decreased trust in available content, and inefficient resource allocation.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the app owner: Reach out to the app owner to confirm if the app is still actively used or needed by its audience.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is inactive or no longer responsible, reassign ownership to an appropriate active team member.
Archive or delete: If the app is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if a retention policy exists) or deleting it to reduce clutter, improve user experience, and free up capacity.
Stale Power BI Dataflows
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI dataflows that have not been modified (e.g., definition changes, query updates) for over 30 days. The purpose is to ensure dataflows remain relevant and actively managed, preventing the accumulation of outdated data transformation logic.
Potential Impact
Use of outdated data, potential data quality issues, increased complexity in data lineage, and inefficient use of Power BI capacity.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the dataflow owner: Reach out to the dataflow owner to confirm if the dataflow is still actively used, required, or if its current state is intentional.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is inactive or no longer responsible, reassign ownership to an appropriate active team member.
Archive or delete: If the dataflow is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if applicable) or deleting it to reduce clutter, free up capacity, and maintain data hygiene.
Stale Power BI Reports
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI reports that have not been modified (e.g., layout changes, filter updates, visual additions) for over 30 days. The purpose is to ensure that all Power BI reports remain current and relevant to user needs.
Potential Impact
Consumption of outdated information, user confusion, reduced confidence in reporting, and inefficient resource utilization.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Contact the report owner: Reach out to the report owner to confirm if the report is still actively used, required, or if its current state is intentional.
Reassign ownership: If the original owner is inactive or no longer responsible, reassign ownership to an appropriate active team member.
Archive or delete: If the report is confirmed to be obsolete, consider archiving it (if appropriate) or deleting it to streamline content and improve user experience.
Unused Power BI Reports
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI reports that show low activity (e.g., few views, no recent interactions) over the past 30 days. The purpose is to optimize Power BI content by identifying reports that are no longer providing value and reducing clutter.
Potential Impact
Cluttered workspaces, decreased user efficiency in finding relevant reports, wasted storage, and potential for misinterpreting low usage as a lack of need for a similar report.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Consult the report owner: Check with the report owner to verify if the report is still needed for any specific purpose, even if activity is low.
Communicate with Users: If the owner is unsure, consider communicating with the intended audience to gauge their need for the report.
Archive or delete: If confirmed as no longer needed, archive or delete the report to declutter workspaces and optimize resources.
Unused Power BI Snowflake Datasets
BI Pillar
Cost
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI semantic models that connect to Snowflake data sources and have recorded no activity (e.g., refreshes, report usage) over the past 30 days. The purpose is to optimize data infrastructure and licensing costs associated with Snowflake connections.
Potential Impact
Unnecessary consumption of Power BI and Snowflake resources, increased complexity in data lineage, and potential for outdated data being retained.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Consult the model owner: Check with the dataset owner to verify if the semantic model is still needed for any reports, dashboards, or other data consumption.<br/>Review lineage: Confirm that no active reports or dashboards are dependent on this dataset.
Archive or delete: If confirmed as no longer needed, archive or delete the model to free up Power BI capacity and potentially reduce Snowflake query costs.
Unused Power BI Datasets
BI Pillar
Cost
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI semantic models that show no activity (e.g., refreshes, associated report usage) over the past 30 days. The purpose is to optimize Power BI capacity and storage by identifying datasets that are no longer consumed by reports.
Potential Impact
Wasted Power BI capacity and storage, increased complexity in data management, and potential for outdated data being retained.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Consult the model owner: Check with the dataset owner to verify if the semantic model is still needed for any reports, dashboards, or other data consumption.
Review lineage: Confirm that no active reports or dashboards are dependent on this dataset.
Archive or delete: If confirmed as no longer needed, archive or delete the model to free up Power BI capacity.
Unused Promoted or Certified Power BI Reports
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI reports that have been promoted or certified (indicating high importance or trustworthiness) but show low activity over the past 30 days. The purpose is to ensure that highly visible and trusted Power BI content is genuinely valuable and actively used.
Potential Impact
Dilution of trust in promoted/certified content, user confusion, inefficient resource allocation, and a perception that official content is not valuable.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Check for similar reports: Investigate if there is a similar report being used more frequently, which might be a preferred alternative.
Contact the report owner: Engage with the report owner to understand the reason for low usage. This could involve user feedback, changes in business needs, or discoverability issues.
Re-evaluate Promotion/Certification: If the report is genuinely unused, consider removing its promoted/certified status or, if necessary, archiving or deleting the report to maintain the integrity of trusted content.
Unused Power BI Dashboards
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor identifies Power BI dashboards that show low activity (e.g., few views, no recent interactions) over the past 30 days. The purpose is to optimize Power BI content by identifying dashboards that are no longer providing value and reducing clutter.
Potential Impact
Cluttered workspaces, decreased user efficiency in finding relevant dashboards, wasted storage, and potential for misinterpreting low usage.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Consult the dashboard owner: Check with the dashboard owner to verify if the dashboard is still needed for any specific purpose, even if activity is low.
Communicate with Users: If the owner is unsure, consider communicating with the intended audience to gauge their need for the dashboard.
Archive or delete: If confirmed as no longer needed, archive or delete the dashboard to declutter workspaces and optimize resources.
Datasets Failed Refresh Due to Processing Error
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI semantic model fails to refresh specifically due to a processing error (ModelRefresh_ShortMessage_ProcessingError). The purpose is to ensure data freshness and reliability, as processing errors can lead to outdated reports and incorrect insights.
Potential Impact
Stale data in reports, inaccurate business insights, reduced trust in data, and potential operational disruptions if critical decisions rely on this data.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Review affected models: Access the Power BI service or Power BI Desktop to inspect the specific model that failed.
Check query and source Errors: Examine the Power Query Editor for any errors in data source connections, M queries, or data transformations.
Verify data availability: Ensure that the source data is accessible, correctly formatted, and contains expected values.
Assess capacity health: Check the Power BI capacity metrics for any resource constraints that might be causing processing issues.
Resolve and reattempt: After identifying and resolving the underlying issue, manually reattempt the dataset refresh and closely monitor the results.
Failed Power BI Refreshes
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI semantic model’s most recent scheduled or on-demand refresh attempt has failed, regardless of the specific error type. The purpose is to ensure continuous data freshness and reliability across all Power BI reports and dashboards.
Potential Impact
Outdated reports, inaccurate business insights, reduced user trust in data, and potential for critical business decisions to be made on stale information.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Investigate cause: Immediately access the dataset's refresh history in the Power BI service to view the specific error message and details.
Check data source availability: Confirm that all connected data sources are online and accessible from the Power BI service or gateway.
Verify credentials: Ensure that the credentials used for connecting to data sources are current and valid.
Review refresh configurations: Check the dataset's refresh settings, including schedule, gateway connections, and any incremental refresh policies.
Address underlying issues: Based on the error details, resolve any identified issues (e.g., network connectivity, data source changes, query syntax errors).
Restore scheduled updates: After resolution, manually trigger a refresh to confirm success, and ensure future scheduled updates will run correctly.
Failure from Disabled Dataset Refresh
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI semantic model fails to refresh due to the ModelRefreshDisabled error. The purpose is to prevent unintended data staleness caused by disabled refresh schedules and to ensure all active datasets are being updated as expected.
Potential Impact
Stale data in reports, reports showing incorrect or incomplete information, and a lack of awareness regarding critical data assets not being updated.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Verify if the disabling was intentional: First, confirm with the model owner or relevant team whether the refresh was intentionally disabled for maintenance, deprecation, or other reasons.
Re-enable refresh: If the disablement was unintentional or needs to be reversed, re-enable the scheduled refresh for the dataset in the Power BI service.
Check configurations & permissions: Ensure all dataset configurations (e.g., data source paths, gateway connections) and user permissions are correctly set up.
Document intentional disables: For models where refresh is intentionally disabled, ensure there is clear documentation (e.g., in Confluence, Jira) explaining the reason and expected duration to maintain visibility and prevent unnecessary alerts.
Duplicate Dataset Measures
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor identifies instances where multiple Power BI semantic models contain an identical measure, detected by repeated DAX expressions. The purpose is to promote consistency in business logic, reduce maintenance overhead, and improve model performance.
Potential Impact
Inconsistent reporting, conflicting business insights, increased maintenance burden, larger model sizes, and reduced trust in data accuracy.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Verify similar datasets: Check how similar the datasets are and determine if they can be consolidated.
Establish centralized logic: Implement a strategy to ensure that such common measures are defined once in a shared dataset (e.g., a "golden dataset") or a Power BI dataflow, and then reused across dependent reports.
Error From Unavailable Enterprise Gateway
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI semantic model fails to refresh due to an Enterprise Gateway error, indicating that the on-premises data gateway may be unavailable or unreachable. The purpose is to ensure continuous connectivity to on-premises data sources.
Potential Impact
Stale data in reports connected to on-premises sources, inability to refresh critical semantic models, disruption to business operations reliant on fresh data, and user frustration.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Check gateway status: Immediately verify that the on-premises data gateway service is running and online on the host machine.
Verify connectivity: Ensure stable network connectivity between the Power BI service and the gateway machine, and between the gateway and the on-premises data sources.
Update gateway: Confirm that the gateway software is up-to-date. Outdated versions can cause connectivity issues.
Restart gateway service: If no obvious issues are found, try restarting the "On-premises data gateway service" from Windows Services.
Enable proactive health alerts: Consider configuring proactive health monitoring and alerts for the gateway itself to detect future outages or performance issues early.
Reports with Missing Dataset
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when Power BI reports are detected without an associated semantic model, which can indicate a broken data lineage or incomplete report configuration. The purpose is to ensure data lineage integrity and maintain the functionality of Power BI reports.
Potential Impact
Non-functional reports, inaccurate data lineage, user frustration, and difficulty in managing and auditing Power BI content.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Identify missing datasets: Identify the intended semantic model for the report and reconnect it by re-publishing the report from Power BI Desktop.
Investigate publishing process: Review the process by which reports are published to prevent future instances of missing dataset.
Datasets with No Recent Refresh
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI semantic model has not been refreshed in the last 30 days. The purpose is to proactively identify datasets that may be providing outdated information to reports and dashboards, ensuring data freshness and reliability for critical business insights.
Potential Impact
Stale data leading to incorrect business decisions, reduced trust in Power BI reports, and a lack of awareness regarding data quality issues.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Review refresh activity: Examine the semantic model’s refresh history in the Power BI service to understand why refreshes haven't occurred.
Confirm schedule configuration: Verify that the refresh schedule is correctly configured and enabled.
Investigate underlying issues: Look for potential issues such as: broken data source connections, permission errors, capacity limitations, or gateway issues.
Resolve and monitor: Address any identified issues and then monitor the dataset to ensure refreshes resume as expected.
Slow Dataset Refresh
BI Pillar
Performance
Alert Type
Event-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when the refresh process for a Power BI semantic model (dataset) takes longer than 30 minutes to complete. The purpose is to optimize Power BI capacity utilization and ensure timely data availability, as slow refreshes can impact the freshness of data and overall system performance.
Potential Impact
Delayed data availability, reduced data freshness, increased load on Power BI capacity, and potential for refresh failures if timeouts are exceeded.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Investigate performance bottlenecks: Check data source performance, review Power Query (M) steps for inefficiencies, and optimize DAX measures.
Incremental refresh: Consider implementing incremental refresh for large datasets to process only new or changed data.
Gateway performance: If using an on-premises gateway, check its resource utilization.
Capacity resources: Monitor Power BI Premium capacity metrics for any resource constraints (CPU, memory).
Discuss with owner: Collaborate with the dataset owner to identify and implement ways to improve the refresh performance.
Reports that Use Pagination
BI Pillar
Performance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when Power BI reports are identified as paginated reports (RDL reports). The purpose is to identify reports that may be resource-intensive or offer a suboptimal interactive user experience, as standard Power BI reports are generally preferred for interactive data exploration.
Potential Impact
Suboptimal user experience for interactive analysis, higher resource consumption for rendering, and potentially slower performance compared to standard reports for ad-hoc queries.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Assess use case: Confirm if the report's primary purpose truly requires a static, pixel-perfect layout (e.g., invoices, compliance documents).
Consider standard report: If interactivity and dynamic data exploration are preferred, evaluate rebuilding the content as a standard Power BI report or dashboard.
Educate users: Inform users about the differences between paginated and standard reports to ensure they choose the most appropriate tool for their needs.
Unlicensed Report Owner
BI Pillar
Governance
Alert Type
Asset-Based
Description
This monitor alerts when a Power BI report exists with an unlicensed or inactive owner. The purpose is to ensure all Power BI reports have clear, active ownership, which is crucial for content management, data governance, and user support.
Potential Impact
Stale or inaccurate reports, lack of support for report users, governance gaps, and potential for critical reports to become unmanaged.
Recommendation
We recommend the following actions to improve the health of your BI system:
Check user activity: Review the report's usage metrics to determine if it's still actively being viewed or interacted with by users.
Archive, delete, or move: If the report is no longer needed or its usage is minimal, consider archiving or deleting it. Alternatively, move it to a different workspace if it's still relevant but needs new ownership.
Assign new owner: For reports that are still valuable, immediately take over ownership or assign a new, active owner to ensure proper maintenance and support.
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