Microsoft introduces per-user usage metrics for Power BI; deeper control of metrics access

Microsoft on its Power BI blog has announced that it is "supercharging usage metrics" by surfacing the names of your end users. The change is rolling out worldwide, and should be completed by the end of this week.

Microsoft has listened to its (vociferous) users. In late May, Microsoft announced the availability of usage metrics in Power BI for dashboard and report authors. The demand for for end-user identity was loud and immediate, with one blog commenter saying "I need to know where it's being used and where it's not," in order to identify training needs and to alert administrators to prompt people to review what they should.

Here it is. Senior Program Manager Sirui Sun promises that this change "has the potential to magnify your impact like never before," with an understanding of exactly who your audience is, and the ability to gather feedback from top users directly.

With the update, and when you view report usage metrics, you will also see a breakdown of the number of views by user. The visual includes both display names and login names of your end users (see graphic above).

The "save as" feature enables you to copy and customize the pre-built usage metrics report to further drill into how end users interact with your reports. In this release, we've augmented the users dimension with display name, login name and the user's GUID.

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