How many Power BI reports were created in your organization this year? And how many are actually viewed every month by active users? In the vast majority of companies, the gap between these two figures is significant, and nobody knows it precisely, for lack of a suitable, consolidated measurement tool.
Why usage analysis is strategic
Measuring the actual usage of reports answers essential questions for any BI team and any data department: which content deserves to be maintained and improved first, which reports are candidates for archiving as part of a cost reduction approach, which teams really use Business Intelligence day to day and which need support or additional training.
What Power BI’s native usage tracking measures
Power BI offers basic usage metrics accessible from each individual report (number of views, unique users over a recent period, usually the last few weeks). These metrics are useful occasionally, for a report-by-report check, but they remain limited to that scale, with no consolidated view to compare all the reports of a portfolio, a business department or an entire tenant in a single interface.
The dimensions of a complete usage analysis
View frequency
Distinguish reports viewed daily, weekly, monthly or almost never: a level of detail essential to avoid confusing a rarely used report with a truly abandoned one.
Trend over time
A report whose usage gradually declines over several months often signals content that has lost its business relevance following a reorganization, a process change, or the emergence of a competing report created by another team.
User profile
A report viewed by a wide range of different users, spread across several teams, does not have the same organizational criticality as a report consistently viewed by one and the same person. The latter situation also represents a risk if that user leaves.
Cross-referencing with compute cost
A rarely viewed but resource-intensive report (frequent refreshes, large data volumes, complex queries) deserves priority review from a cost reduction perspective, as detailed in our dedicated article.
From measurement to decision
Usage analysis delivers its full value when it feeds concrete, documented decisions: prioritizing feature improvements on highly adopted reports rather than spreading development effort, starting a constructive conversation with the owner of a report in declining use before unilaterally deciding its future, or objectively justifying, with figures, a clean-up policy to business departments that are sometimes reluctant to see “their” reports archived without tangible proof that they are not used.
Continuous measurement, not a one-off audit
As with inventory and lineage, the value of usage analysis depends directly on its continuity over time. Usage measured only once a year, during a one-off audit, makes it possible neither to detect gradual declines nor to react quickly when a report suddenly loses relevance following an organizational change (team merger, source system change, reorganization of departments).
Building a usable usage dashboard
A truly actionable usage dashboard must make it possible, in a few clicks and without any particular technical skills, to sort reports by decreasing frequency, filter by business department or by owner, and easily export a list of archiving candidates for approval. It is this accessibility, more than the technical sophistication of the measurement itself, that determines whether usage analysis will really be used day to day by BI teams or remain a one-off exercise with no follow-up.
Frequently asked questions
Over what period should usage be measured for a reliable decision?
A minimum of six months is recommended, to cover any quarterly or seasonal usage cycles and avoid wrongly penalizing a low-frequency but high-value report.
Is the number of views a good indicator on its own?
No, it must be cross-referenced with the number of unique users and the trend over time. A report opened 200 times in the quarter by a single person who views it every day does not have the same reach as a report opened 200 times by 200 different people: the first depends on a single user, the second is widely distributed across the organization.
How should reports used only by top management be handled?
These reports should be flagged as critical regardless of how often they are viewed, which is often rarely but with very high strategic value. A usage audit should make it possible to give them a specific criticality status, separate from frequency alone.
This usage analysis directly feeds the approaches described in “Reducing Power BI costs” and complements the long-term history presented in “Power BI metadata retention“.
