In this blog post below I am going to show you how I created my own Custom Usage Metrics Report.

NOTE: This has been done using my Report Metrics and not the Dashboard Metrics.

NOTE II: I am going to refer to the Reports Usage Metrics as RUM (It has a nice ring to it)

And then how I changed the Connection details, so that I could re-use the same Custom Usage Metrics report in all my different App Workspaces.

Creating my own Custom Usage Metrics dataset

In order to do this, I followed the following blog post from the Power BI Team.

Measure and magnify your impact with dashboard and report Usage Metrics for content creators

I then followed how to create my own dataset under the section called: “Save the Usage Metrics report as a full-featured Power BI report (personalize)”

What this does is briefly the following.

  • You first must run the Reports Usage Metrics to create the report.
  • Once that is done, you can then go into the Usage Metrics report.
  • Then you can click on File and then Save As save the report with a different name.
    • What that does is it then saves a version of the report and the underlying dataset.

Rename dataset

Next what I did was to rename the dataset that was created as part of the Reports Usage Metrics report after I had clicked on File and Save As

  • In the Power BI Service I went to my App Workspace and clicked on Datasets
  • I could then see my new dataset for my Report Usage Metrics Model.
  • I then clicked on the Ellipses and selected Rename
  • I then renamed it to Report Usage Metrics Model – Site Analytics
    • Then I clicked Save.

My Reports Usage Metrics Report

I have already created my Reports Usage Metrics report in which I had created the measures and visuals. As shown below.

Creating a connection to my new Reports Usage Metric dataset

Next what I needed to do was to create a connection to my Reports Usage Metrics Report dataset for the Report Usage Metrics Model – Site Analytics, this is so that I can get all the connection details.

  • To do this I opened a new Power BI Desktop File.
  • I then clicked on Get Data and selected the Power BI Service.
  • I then selected the Dataset I had renamed earlier
  • I then clicked Load.
  • I could now see all the tables under the Fields.
  • Then I saved my file with the following name.
    • RUM – Site Analytics – Connection.pbix
    • NOTE: Make a note of where you saved this file.
    • NOTE II: This is so that I know it is the file that has the connection in it.

Creating a copy of my Reports and updating the connection file.

What I did next was to copy my existing Reports Usage Metrics report, and once copied I then updated the connection file, so that it will now point at my Report Usage Metrics Model – Site Analytics dataset.

  • I went into my Windows Explorer to where I had my first Reports Usage Metrics report.
  • Right clicked and selected Copy.
  • Then right clicked again and selected Paste.
  • I then renamed the Reports Usage Metrics Model – Finance – Copy.pbix to Reports Usage Metrics Model – Site Analytics.pbix
  • Now what I did was to find the file I saved above and copied it into this folder.
  • I then renamed the following files to .ZIP, this is so that I can copy the Connection
    file between the files.
    • I did get prompted asking if I was sure to change it and I clicked on Yes
    • This is what my files looked like.
  • Now I went into the RUM – Site Analytics – Connection.ZIP file and copied the Connections
    File into the same folder.
    • So that I had extracted it out of the ZIP file.
  • I then went into the Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.ZIP file.
    • I then copied the Connections file from the previous step into this ZIP file (Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.ZIP)
    • I was prompted that a file already exists
    • I clicked Copy and Replace
  • I then renamed my Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.ZIP
    back to Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.pbix
    • I did get prompted asking if I was sure to change it and I clicked on Yes

Opening my Updated Reports file and uploading to the Power BI Service.

The final step was to now open my Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.pbix, make sure it is correct, and then upload this into my App Workspace.

  • I opened my Reports Usage Metrics Model -Site Analytics.pbix and waited for the refresh to complete.
  • I could then see that this was updating to my data in my Site Analytics Workspace.
  • I then uploaded this to my App Workspace and I could see my usage metrics for my App Workspace.

Conclusion

As you can see I have shown you how to copy an existing Reports Usage Metrics report, so that you can quickly and easily copy this to all of your other App Workspaces to see how it is being used by the users in your organization.

If there are any questions please let me know in the comments section below.