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BI Pixie Workload in Microsoft Fabric
Generally Available

Admin Monitoring

With Admin Monitoring, you see how Power BI is used across your organization, beyond the reports that carry Pixies. You set it up once, from the BI Pixie item in the Fabric Workload. BI Pixie then collects the data every day and adds admin pages to the BI Pixie Dashboard.

What Admin Monitoring collects

  • Activity: who opened, shared and changed content, and when.
  • Inventory: which workspaces, semantic models and reports exist, and how they connect.
  • Performance: the DAX query durations of your reports, and which reports are slow. Performance data is optional.

Where the data comes from

BI Pixie reads each source with Microsoft's own APIs, once a day, and reads nothing else from your tenant. The table names each API as Microsoft documents it.

Source What BI Pixie reads Microsoft API or table What it needs
Activity Who opened, shared, changed and exported content, and who asked Copilot or a Fabric data agent a question. The Power BI activity log, through the Power BI REST API Admin - Get Activity Events. A Fabric administrator's sign-in, or a service principal allowed by the tenant setting "Service principals can access read-only admin APIs".
Inventory Which workspaces, semantic models and reports exist, their data sources, their endorsement and how they connect. The Power BI scanner APIs: Admin - WorkspaceInfo GetModifiedWorkspaces, PostWorkspaceInfo, GetScanStatus and GetScanResult. Admin - Groups GetGroupsAsAdmin finds the workspaces on each capacity. The same sign-in or service principal as Activity, and the tenant settings "Enhance admin APIs responses with detailed metadata" and "Enhance admin APIs responses with DAX and mashup expressions".
Performance, from Workspace Monitoring The DAX query durations of your reports. Optional. The SemanticModelLogs table in the monitoring Eventhouse of Fabric workspace monitoring. Workspace Monitoring turned on in each workspace BI Pixie reads.
Performance, from Azure Log Analytics The same DAX query durations, read instead of Workspace Monitoring. Optional. The PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace table in an Azure Log Analytics workspace that your Power BI workspaces send their logs to. A service principal with the "Log Analytics Data Reader" role on the Log Analytics workspace.

BI Pixie reads one performance source, never both. To set up the tenant settings for a service principal, see Use a service principal.

The data is stored in the workspace that holds the BI Pixie item. Everyone with access to that workspace can see it, so choose a workspace whose members may see tenant activity. You can change who has access in the workspace settings in Fabric.

Where to find it

In the BI Pixie item, select Admin Monitoring in the sidebar. The Overview page also shows a card that reads "See how Power BI is used across your organization." Select Learn more on that card to open the same page.

Your BI Pixie account has one Admin Monitoring setup. If you open Admin Monitoring from a BI Pixie item in another workspace, the page names the workspace where Admin Monitoring is set up and offers Open Admin Monitoring. Its data, its daily refresh and its settings are managed from the BI Pixie item in that workspace.

Who can set it up

Any administrator of your BI Pixie account can set up Admin Monitoring. Three more things are needed:

  • Your BI Pixie account is on the Pro or Enterprise plan. On the Free and Standard plans, the Admin Monitoring page says "Admin Monitoring needs the Pro or Enterprise plan." and setup is not available.
  • The workspace that holds the BI Pixie item is on a Fabric capacity. The daily refresh runs on that capacity, once a day.
  • The daily refresh can read tenant activity. Microsoft lets only Fabric administrators read tenant activity, so the daily refresh runs either with the sign-in of a Fabric administrator or as a service principal that a Fabric administrator has authorized.

Before setup starts, the page shows a checklist titled "Before you set up Admin Monitoring". It confirms whether you are a Fabric administrator and whether the workspace is on a Fabric capacity.

If you are not a Fabric administrator

You have two routes:

  • Use a service principal. A service principal is an app identity your organization creates in Microsoft Entra. Once a Fabric administrator authorizes it, you can set up Admin Monitoring yourself and own its daily refresh. See Use a service principal.
  • Ask a Fabric administrator. A Fabric administrator can set up Admin Monitoring with their own sign-in, and the daily refresh then runs as them. Select Copy link to this page and send the link to them.

Next steps