Set alerts in the Power BI service to notify you when data on a dashboard changes above or below limits you set. Alerts can only be set on tiles pinned from report visuals, and only on KPIs, gauges, and cards.
Only you can see the alerts that you set, even if you share your dashboard. Even the dashboard owner can not see alerts you set on your view of their dashboard.
Alerts only work on data that is refreshed. When data refreshes, Power BI looks to see if an alert is set for that data. If the data has reached an alert threshold, an alert is triggered.
Alerts can be created on dashboards:
- that you have created and saved in My workspace.
- that have been shared with you in a Premium capacity.
- in any workspace you can access, if you have a Power BI Pro license.
Following are some considerations and troubleshooting for alert, suggested by Microsoft as follows:
- Alerts are not supported for card tiles with date/time measures.
- Alerts only work with numeric data types.
- Alerts only work on refreshed data. They do not work on static data.
- Alerts only work on streaming datasets if you build a KPI, card, or gauge report visual and then pin that visual to the dashboard.
Lets see how to set a Alerts in Power BI Service, Log onto you Power BI Service account.
As you can see in below screenshot, here we have a Dashboard named SalesPerformance.
It has four tiles which are pinned from report to this dashboard. It displays the Sales performance of each region North, South, East and West, and you can also see the total sales target for each region is 70.00K.
Assume that you want receive an alert when the number of total sales goes above 70.00 K for North and South region, for this requirement you can set alerts on North Sales Performance and South Sales Performance tiles.
Set Data Alert
Lets set alert on North Sales Performance tile, click on ellipses (…), and select Manage Alerts.
Once you click on Manage Alert, you will see a screen opens on the right side of dashboard.
Click on Add alert rule button.
After clicking on that, it asks you to provide the details for alert such as Alert title (by default given) that can be changed, condition and threshold value, Maximum notification frequency for alert.
Make sure that the Active slider is set to On, and give your alert a title. Titles help you easily identify your alerts.
Now, set an alert as per you requirement, here we have set an alert when total sales goes above threshold value 70.00K.
By default, you will receive an alert on the Power BI service in the notification center, if you want to receive an alert on email too then scroll down, and select Send me email, too option.
Once you done, click on Save and Close button.
Similarly, we will set an alert for South Sales Performance tile too, now these alerts are only sent when sales for any of these region goes above threshold 70.00K.
To verifying and receiving alert notification, lets add some sales amount for North, and South region in SQL table so that the total sales amount reaches the thresholds that you have set. Also we have set a scheduled a refresh for this data source which runs in every 15 minute so that we can receive alert quickly otherwise you need to manfully refresh data source to receive alert notification.
Receiving Data Alert
When tracked data reaches the thresholds, Power BI Service checks to see if it’s been more than an hour or more than 24 hours (depends on the option you selected) since the last alert. If the data is past the threshold, you will get an alert.
Next, Power BI Service sends an alert to your Notification center and, on an email if you have enabled Send me email, too option by the time you created an alert.
Each alert contains a direct link to your data as shown below.
When you click on Go to Tile link in notification center, it opens the tile in focus mode, so that you can take a look on figures.
Following is the screenshot of alert received on mail for South Sales Performance, similarly you will receive mail for each tiles you have set an alert.
Manage Alerts
There are many ways to manage your alerts such as you can manage it from the dashboard tile, from the Power BI Settings menu also can manage it from on a tile in mobile apps.
Manage Alert from Dashboard tiles
If you need to change or remove an alert for a tile, click on ellipses (…) and select Manage alerts, as shown below.
Then a Manage alerts screen opens, here you can remove or change an alert.
Manage Alert from Power BI settings menu
Lets see how to manage an alert from the Power BI settings menu, go to settings menu then click on settings as shown below.
After that under Alerts tab, you can see all the alerts that you have created.
From here you can turn alerts on and off, open the Manage alerts window to make changes, or delete the alert.
Also Read..
Publish Report to Power BI Service
Introduction to Workspace in Power BI, Assign Roles and Permission
Monitor usage and performance in workspace
