Configure Azure Log Analytics for Power BI

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.

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.

   

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

   

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:

   

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.

   

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.

   

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

   

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.

   

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.

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'

Sample Log Analytics KQL queries

The following collection of sample queries might be helpful when you use Azure Log Analytics with Power BI. They can be run directly in the Azure portal or through APIs to query the latest data, typically about 5-10 minutes old.

// log count per day for last 30d
PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| summarize count() by format_datetime(TimeGenerated, 'yyyy-MM-dd')


// average query duration by day for last 30d
PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| where OperationName == 'QueryEnd'
| summarize avg(DurationMs) by format_datetime(TimeGenerated, 'yyyy-MM-dd')


//query duration percentiles for a single day in 1 hour bins
PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
| where TimeGenerated >= todatetime('2021-04-28') and TimeGenerated <= todatetime('2021-04-29')
| where OperationName == 'QueryEnd'
| summarize percentiles(DurationMs, 0.5, 0.9) by bin(TimeGenerated, 1h)


// refresh durations by workspace and semantic model for last 30d
PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| where OperationName == 'CommandEnd'
| where ExecutingUser contains 'Power BI Service'
| where EventText contains 'refresh'
| project PowerBIWorkspaceName, DatasetName = ArtifactName, DurationMs

// query count, distinctUsers, avgCPU, avgDuration by workspace for last 30d
PowerBIDatasetsWorkspace  
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| where OperationName == "QueryEnd" 
| summarize QueryCount=count()
    , Users = dcount(ExecutingUser)
    , AvgCPU = avg(CpuTimeMs)
    , AvgDuration = avg(DurationMs)
by PowerBIWorkspaceId

Sample Power BI Report Template

Explore and get insights of Azure Log Analytics Power BI data using an open-source Power BI Report Template on GitHub.

Related content

The following articles can help you learn more about Power BI and about its integration with Azure Log Analytics.

• Using Azure Log Analytics in Power BI
• Azure Log Analytics in Power BI - FAQ
• What is Power BI Premium?
• Workspaces in Power BI