Edit

Configure Azure Log Analytics for Power BI

  • Article

Power BI is integrating with Azure Log Analytics to enable administrators and Premium workspace owners to configure a Log Analytics connection to their Power BI subscription. This article describes how the integration between Log Analytics and Power BI works and how to configure it for your environment.

There are two elements to getting Azure Log Analytics working for Power BI:

  • Configure your Azure subscription in the Azure portal.
  • Enable Log analytics for Power BI in the Power BI Admin portal.

The following sections take you through the steps in to do both.

Screenshot of the Azure connections tab open in the settings pane.

Prerequisites

Before you can configure Log Analytics integration from Power BI, you need to create a Log Analytics Workspace in the Azure portal. You must also give permission in Azure for the Power BI service to write logs. The exact requirements are:

  • Contributor access to Azure subscription.
  • Register the 'microsoft.insights' resource provider in the Azure subscription where you'll collect Power BI log data.
  • The user who sets up Log Analytics integration in Power BI must be in the Log Analytics Contributor role for the Log Analytics Workspace. See FAQ for workarounds if the Owner role can't be given.

Enable the 'microsoft.insights' resource provider

Log Analytics requires the 'microsoft.insights' resource provider enabled at the Azure subscription level. The following steps take you through the process.

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal, select the subscription you want to use with Log Analytics and that contains your Log Analytics workspaces. In the Settings section, select Resource providers as shown in the following image.

    Screenshot of the settings menu options, resource providers is selected.

  2. Search for microsoft.insights under Resource providers. Then select Register.

    Screenshot of resource providers in the main pane with Microsoft.insights is registered.

Set permissions

  1. Make sure the user configuring Log Analytics integration has Log Analytics Contributor role of the Log Analytics workspace. When you select Access control (IAM) for the subscription in the Azure portal, and then select Role assignments from the top selections in the panel, the current user must see one entry: Log Analytics Contributor for the user who configures Log Analytics:

    Screenshot of the Access control pane with role highlighted.

After you complete those steps, the Azure Log Analytics configuration portion is complete. The next section shows you how to continue and complete the configuration in the Power BI Admin portal.

Allow Workspace-level logging from the Admin Portal

A Power BI administrator must complete the following step to enable Azure Log Analytics for Power BI Premium workspaces. This setting allows Power BI Premium workspace administrators to send their workspace logs to Azure Log Analytics when the prerequisites have been met.

  1. In the Power BI Admin portal, go to Tenant Settings > Audit and usage settings, and expand Azure Log Analytics connections for workspace administrators. To allow workspace admins to enable Log Analytics, set the slider to Enabled and specify the needed security groups under Apply to, as shown in the following image.

    Screenshot of tenant settings in the Admin portal. Azure log analytics connections for workspace administrators is expanded and enabled.

Configure logging in a Premium Workspace

  1. In the Premium workspace, workspace admins can enable Log Analytics. To do so, go to Settings as shown in the following image.

    Screenshot of the settings pane in a Premium workspace.

  2. In the Settings pane, select Azure connections, then expand Log Analytics as shown in the following image.

    Screenshot of the Azure connections tab open in the settings pane, Log Analytics is expanded.

  3. Select the Azure subscription, Resource group, and then the Log Analytics workspace configured in the previous section. Then choose Save. When successfully completed, the expanded Tenant-level Log Analytics section should look similar to the following image.

    Screenshot of the Azure connections tab open in the settings pane showing sample information.

Disconnect Azure Log Analytics

You can disconnect from Azure Log Analytics to stop sending logs to Azure. To disconnect, in the Power BI Workspace Settings, go to the Log Analytics settings. Select Disconnect from Azure. Then choose Save to disconnect.

Screenshot of the disconnect warning on the settings pane.

Note

When you disconnect a Power BI workspace from Azure Log Analytics, logs are not deleted. Your data remains and follows the storage and retention policies you set there.

Usage scenarios

There are many ways that Azure Log Analytics and Power BI can help solve real-world challenges for your organization. Consider the following:

  • Identify periods of high or unusual Analysis Services engine activity by capacity, workspace, report, or user.
  • Analyze query performance and trends, including external DirectQuery operations.
  • Analyze semantic model refresh duration, overlaps, and processing steps.
  • Analyze custom operations sent using the Premium XMLA endpoint.

Send us feedback in the Power BI Community for how you're using logging and how it has helped your organization.

Error conditions and resolutions

The following table provides a collection of common errors, the events or configurations that triggered them, and suggested resolutions.

Trigger Condition Type Message
You don't have permission to write to the Log Analytics Workspace Error - cannot proceed You need write permissions on this Log Analytics workspace to connect it to Power BI. Contact the person in your organization who manages Azure subscriptions to fix this problem.
You don't have permission to write to the Log Analytics workspace account Error - cannot proceed You need write permissions on this Log Analytics workspace to connect it to Power BI.
You don't have access to any Azure subscriptions Error - cannot proceed You don't have access to any Azure subscriptions. Ask the person who manages Azure subscriptions in your organization to grant you contributor access or higher.
You don't have access to any Azure Log Analytics workspaces within that subscription Error - cannot proceed You don't have access to an Azure Log Analytics workspace. Ask the person who manages Azure subscriptions in your organization to add you to the Log Analytics owner or contributor role.
Workspace-level Log Analytics disabled when trying to connect Information Ask your tenant admin to grant workspace admins permission to connect Log Analytics workspaces.
Workspace-level Log Analytics disabled when trying to disconnect Information Your tenant admin revoked permission for workspace admins to connect their own Azure Log Analytics workspaces. If you disconnect, you can't connect to another one.

Events and schema

After you enable Azure Log Analytics, it starts to log the following event categories. For more information on these events, see Analysis Services Trace Events.

  • AggregateTableRewriteQuery
  • Command
  • Deadlock
  • DirectQuery
  • Discover
  • Error
  • ProgressReport
  • Query
  • Session Initialize
  • VertiPaqSEQuery
  • Notification

The following table describes the schema.

Property Existing Azure Analysis Services property Description
TimeGenerated The timestamp (UTC) of when the log was generated.
OperationName EventClass_s The operation associated with the log record.
CorrelationId The ID for correlated events. Can be used to identify correlated events between multiple tables.
PowerBIWorkspaceId Unique identifier of the workspace containing the artifact being operated on.
PremiumCapacityId Unique identifier of the Premium capacity hosting the artifact being operated on.
ApplicationContext ApplicationContext_s Property bag of unique identifiers providing details about the application executing the request. for example, report ID.
ApplicationName ApplicationName_s Contains the name of the client application that created the connection to the server. This column is populated with the values passed by the application rather than the displayed name of the program.
ArtifactId Unique identifier of the resource logging the data.
ArtifactKind Type of artifact logging the operation, for example, semantic model.
CpuTimeMs CPUTime_s Amount of CPU time (in milliseconds) used by the event.
ArtifactName DatabaseName_s The name of the Power BI artifact logging this operation.
LogAnalyticsCategory Unique Category of the events, like Audit/Security/Request.
DatasetMode The mode of the semantic model. Import, DirectQuery, or Composite.
DurationMs Duration_s Amount of time (in milliseconds) taken by the operation.
User User_s The user associated with the running operation. Used when an end-user identity must be impersonated on the server.
ExecutingUser EffectiveUsername_s The user running the operation.
OperationDetailName EventSubclass_s More details about the operation.
XmlaObjectPath ObjectPath_s Object path. A comma-separated list of parents, starting with the object's parent.
PowerBIWorkspaceName Name of the Power BI workspace containing the artifact.
StatusCode Error_s Status code of the operation. It covers success and failure.
ProgressCounter ProgressTotal_s Progress counter.
XmlaProperties RequestProperties_s Properties of the XMLA request.
XmlaSessionId SPID_s Analysis Services session identifier.
Level Severity_s Contains the severity level of the operation being logged. Success, Informational, Warning, or Error.
Identity Information about user and claims.
Status Status of the operation.
EventText TextData_s Contains verbose information associated with the operation, for example, DAX Query.
CustomerTenantId Customer's Power BI tenant identifier.
XmlaRequestId RootActivityId_g Unique Identifier of request.
ReplicaId Replica identifier that will let you identify the replica when Query Scale Out (QSO) is enabled. Read-write replica always has ReplicaId='AAA' and read-only replicas have ReplicaId starting 'AAB' onwards. For non-QSO enabled semantic models the ReplicaId is always 'AAA'

ExecutionMetrics event

For every Discover, Command and Query request, an event named ExecutionMetrics is produced at the end of the request. This event contains execution metrics for the request, which can assist you in diagnosing and troubleshooting more effectively. The ExecutionMetrics trace is correlated with the nearest [Discover|Command|Query]End event.

The following KQL query retrieves the ExecutionMetrics events for all refresh operations of a Semantic Model in the last day:

let commands = PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
    | where TimeGenerated > ago(1d)
    | where ArtifactId =~ "[Semantic Model Id]"
    | where OperationName in ("CommandEnd")
    | where EventText contains "<Refresh"
    | project TimeGenerated, ArtifactId, CommandOperationName = OperationName, XmlaRequestId, CorrelationId, CommandText = EventText;
let executionMetrics = PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace        
    | where OperationName == "ExecutionMetrics"
    | project TimeGenerated, XmlaRequestId, CorrelationId, EventText;
commands
| join kind=leftouter executionMetrics on XmlaRequestId

The following KQL query retrieves events that were throttled in the last day by workspace, item, and user:

let executionMetrics = PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
    | where TimeGenerated > ago(1d)    
    | where OperationName == "ExecutionMetrics"    
    | extend eventTextJson = parse_json(EventText)      
    | extend capacityThrottlingMs=toint(eventTextJson.capacityThrottlingMs)
    | where capacityThrottlingMs > 0;
let commands = PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace    
    | where OperationName in ("CommandEnd", "QueryEnd", "DiscoverEnd")    
    | project
        TimeGenerated,
        ExecutingUser,
        ArtifactId,
        PowerBIWorkspaceId,
        CommandOperationName = OperationName,
        XmlaRequestId,
        CorrelationId,
        CommandText = EventText;
commands
| join kind=inner executionMetrics on XmlaRequestId
| project
    TimeGenerated,
    ArtifactId,
    PowerBIWorkspaceId,
    ExecutingUser,
    CommandOperationName,
    XmlaRequestId,
    EventText,
    CommandText,
    capacityThrottlingMs
| summarize countThrottling = count(), avgThrottlingDuration = avg(capacityThrottlingMs) by PowerBIWorkspaceId, ArtifactId, ExecutingUser, CommandOperationName

The statistics are presented as a JSON text in the EventText property, see the following examples.

{
    "timeStart": "2024-03-20T12:39:59.681Z",
    "timeEnd": "2024-03-20T13:01:14.241Z",
    "durationMs": 1274559,    
    "vertipaqJobCpuTimeMs": 156,
    "mEngineCpuTimeMs": 9617484,
    "totalCpuTimeMs": 9618469,
    "executionDelayMs": 10,
    "approximatePeakMemConsumptionKB": 1683409,
    "mEnginePeakMemoryKB": 1676816,
    "tabularConnectionTimeoutMs": 18000000,    
    "refreshParallelism": 16,
    "vertipaqTotalRows": 114,
    "intendedUsage": 2
}