Configuring Azure Log Analytics for Power BI (Preview)
Power BI is integrating with Azure Log Analytics (LA) 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: configuring your Azure subscription in the Azure portal, and enabling Log analytics for Power BI in the Power BI Admin portal. The following sections take you through the steps in each, in turn.
Pre-requisites
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:
- Register the 'microsoft.insights' resource provider in the Azure subscription where you will collect Power BI log data
- The user who will set up Log Analytics integration in Power BI must be in the Owner role for the Log Analytics Workspace. See FAQ for workarounds if Owner cannot be given.
- The service principal 'Power BI Service' must be in the Owner role for the Log Analytics Workspace.
The following section shows you how to meet these three requirements.
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.
Log into 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.
Search for microsoft.insights under Resource providers and then select Register.
Set Permissions
Make sure the user configuring Log Analytics integration and the Power BI Service principal are in the Owner 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 at least two entries: Owner for the user who will configure Log Analytics (1, in the following image), and Owner for the Power BI service (2, in the following image).
Once you've completed 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 will allow Power BI Premium workspace administrators to send their workspace logs to Azure Log Analytics when the pre-requisites have been met.
In the Power BI Admin portal navigate to Tenant Settings > Audit and usage settings and expand Azure Log Analytics connections for workspace administrators. To allow workspace admins to enable Log Analytics, switch 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
In the Premium workspace, workspace admins can enable Log Analytics. To do so, navigate to Settings as shown in the following image.
In the Settings pane, select Azure connections (preview), then expand Log Analytics as shown in the following image.
Select the Azure subscription, Resource group, and then the Log Analytics workspace configured in the previous section, then select Save. When successfully completed, the expanded Tenant-level Log Analytics (Preview) section will 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, navigate to the Log Analytics settings. The following image shows the warning displayed when the Disconnect from Azure button is selected.
Select Save to disconnect.
Note
When you disconnect a Power BI workspace from Azure Log Analytics, logs are not deleted. Your data remains in the Azure 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. Here are a few to consider:
- Identifying periods of high or unusual Analysis Services engine activity by capacity, workspace, report or user
- Analyzing query performance and trends, including external DirectQuery operations
- Analyzing dataset refresh duration, overlaps and processing steps
- Analyzing 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 |
|---|---|---|
| User doesn'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. |
| User doesn'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. |
| Does not 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. |
| Does not 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 won't be able to connect to another one. |
Events and schema
Once enabled, Azure Log Analytics will 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
The following table describes the schema.
| Property | Existing Azure Analysis Services property | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 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, Dataset | |
| ArtifactName | DatabaseName_s | The name of the Power BI artifact logging this operation. |
| LogAnalyticsCategory | Unique | Category of the events, like Audit/Security/Request. |
| CorrelationId | The ID for correlated events. Can be used to identify correlated events between multiple tables. | |
| CpuTimeMs | CPUTime_s | Amount of CPU time (in milliseconds) used by the event. |
| CustomerTenantId | Customer's Power BI tenant identifier. | |
| DatasetMode | The mode of the dataset. Import, DirectQuery, or Composite. | |
| DurationMs | Duration_s | Amount of time (in milliseconds) taken by the operation. |
| EventText | TextData_s | Contains verbose information associated with the operation, for example, DAX Query |
| ExecutingUser | EffectiveUsername_s | The user executing the operation. |
| Identity | Information about user and claims. | |
| Level | Severity_s | Contains the severity level of the operation being logged. Success, Informational, Warning, or Error. |
| OperationDetailName | EventSubclass_s | More details about the operation. |
| OperationName | EventClass_s | The operation associated with the log record. |
| PremiumCapacityId | Unique identifier of the Premium capacity hosting the artifact being operated on. | |
| ProgressCounter | ProgressTotal_s | Progress counter. |
| ProgressReportBegin | Collects all progress report begin events since the trace was started. | |
| ProgressReportCurrent | Collects all progress report current events since the trace was started. | |
| ProgressReportError | Collects all progress report error events since the trace was started. | |
| Status | Status of the operation. | |
| StatusCode | Error_s | Status code of the operation. It covers success and failure. |
| TenantId | Unique identifier of Microsoft's Power BI tenant. This does not refer to the customer tenant. | |
| TimeGenerated | The timestamp (UTC) of when the log was generated. | |
| User | User_s | The user on whose behalf the operation is running. Used when an end-user identity must be impersonated on the server. |
| VertipaqSEQueryBegin | Vertipaq storage engine query start time. | |
| VertipaqSEQueryEnd | Vertipaq storage engine query end time. | |
| WorkspaceId | Unique identifier of the workspace containing the artifact being operated on. | |
| WorkspaceName | ServerName_s | Name of the workspace containing the artifact. |
| XmlaObjectPath | ObjectPath_s | Object path. A comma-separated list of parents, starting with the object's parent. |
| XmlaProperties | RequestProperties_s | Properties of the XMLA request. |
| XmlaRequestId | RootActivityId_g | Unique Identifier of request. |
| XmlaSessionId | SPID_s | Analysis Services session identifier. |
Sample Log Analytics KQL queries
The following collection of sample queries may be helpful when using Azure Log Analytics with Power BI. They can be executed 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 dataset 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
Next steps
The following articles can help you learn more about Power BI, and about its integration with Azure Log Analytics.
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