Question

How can I monitor Power BI Premium capacity usage effectively?
I need a way to track and analyze how Power BI Premium capacity is being utilized across my organization. The goal is to proactively manage workloads, avoid capacity overloads, and ensure consistent report performance. What tools, metrics, or dashboards are available to monitor capacity usage, and how can I set up alerts or automate scaling decisions based on usage trends?

Answer 1

To monitor Power BI Premium capacity usage effectively, use the Power BI Premium Capacity Metrics App, which provides detailed insights into how your capacity is performing. This app includes key metrics like CPU usage, memory consumption, dataset refresh duration, query wait times, and dataset evictions—helping you identify overloaded capacities, inefficient datasets, or peak usage times.

In addition to the Metrics App, enable Power BI Activity Logs and Azure Log Analytics integration to capture user actions, refresh failures, and other operational events. These logs can be ingested into custom dashboards for broader visibility or integrated with Power Automate or Azure Monitor to trigger alerts based on predefined thresholds (e.g., CPU over 80% for 10 minutes).

For automated scaling decisions, consider using autoscale settings for Fabric capacities (if applicable), or proactively redistribute workspaces across capacities to balance load. Combine these monitoring tools with clear governance—such as scheduling dataset refreshes during off-peak hours and limiting large ad-hoc queries—to ensure your Power BI Premium environment remains performant and reliable.