Major Update and Content Release!
The focus of this update is multi-faceted, adding a significant amount of new functionality to Power BI Sentinel as well as a wide array of server-side optimizations designed to bolster system stability and improve efficiency through reductions in processing times.

Added Fabric Asset Inventory to Sentinel
As part of our ongoing Fabric integration, For E-1000 licenses and above, we are now providing data for all assets hosted in Fabric capacities, including Fabric Warehouses, Lakehouses, Deployment Pipelines, Dataflows, Notebooks, SQL Endpoints, and more.

Intra Day Semantic Model Refresh Processing (Preview)
For E-1000 licenses and above, we are now processing dataset refresh history and dataset refresh schedules multiple times throughout the day instead of once per day as we did previously. This feature is in private preview and will soon be in public release.

Power BI Sentinel Portal Ul update

With this update, every part of the Sentinel web portal has received a comprehensive update. Various pages have been completely re-designed, while others have received some new useful features.

We have also added in a multitude of quality-of-life features intended to:

• Enhance user experience and make it easier for users to update Sentinel account configuration; Configure backup schedules;
• Visualize report/dataset documentation;
• Explore data source lineage throughout Power BI estate;
• Get more value out of risk assessment data.and much more!

New Data Output: Organizational license usage

Tenants can now enable a new permission scope in Power BI Sentinel that will provide data about Microsoft license usage across the entire organization. This data is processed on a daily basis and is focused solely on Power BI licenses as well as Office 365 E3 and E5 licenses, to help organizations better understand and manage license usage at a granular level.

Further Back-end enhancements and optimizations

As well as new features, we have focused strongly on completing a very extensive amount of server-side enhancements and streamlining existing services, to further bolster overall stability.

[Released November 2024]

New data items released!

1. [TenantSetting] which includes information about which settings have been enabled or disabled for the Power BI tenant, as well as when the setting was last updated within the environment.
2. [RLSRole] and RLSRoleMember] which provide information about the roles in datasets' RLS configuration, as well as the Power BI users from the tenant who have been assigned to those roles.
3. [Subscription] and [SubscriptionUser] which provide a tenant-wide data output of email subscriptions for different kinds of Power BI items (such as reports or dashboards) along with subscriber details.

Enhanced processing of Power BI gateways

We have significantly enhanced and expanded the part of Power BI Sentinel that processes Power BI gateways.

By processing each gateway separately, we're now providing a full and up-to-date picture of all data sources currently connected to those gateways, even if those data sources aren't being used by any datasets

[Released September 2024]

Fabric Audit Logs
Added audit logs for Fabric activity to your logging database!

Enhanced query parsing
This new M code parsing engine allows us to extract a rich amount of data including information on datasources, server names, databases, schema names, table names, and much more.
This should noticeably enhance what insights are extracted from dataset documentation.

Completely re-designed the tenant configuration part of the Power BI Sentinel portal, making it easier to navigate and update settings. Users now have access to 2 separate wizards for logging database and storage account, as well as a dedicated section to set up Service Principal.

Token refresh microservice
Deployed a new microservice to refresh Microsoft API tokens which are essential for processing Power BI data.
Avoiding the need to have users log in at regular intervals to grant Sentinel the access it needs to perform its functionality.

[Released May 2024]

Back end services and architectural changes
Developed a new microservice to separate Sentinel's existing SQL parsing functionality from the core application, allowing us to process table level lineage independently from the core services.

This microservice is able to parse queries in various flavours of SQL including SQL Server, MySql, PSQL, Snowflake, ANSI SQL, and several other formats, giving it a very high level of versatility and compatibility.

[Released November 2023]

Service Principal Support!

New: Service Principal Support

Power BI Sentinel was previously limited to using the security tokens of users that had logged into the Sentinel portal, to interact with the Power BI API.

Although straightforward, this often caused a problem where users would not log in for a while, the token would expire, and Sentinel would retrieve incomplete information.

We have now added the optional facility to set up a Power BI Service Principal, a dedicated service account which prevents the need to rely on users logging in.

Especially for larger or more security restricted environments this provides a significant boost in configuration flexibility and reliability.

Service principal also allows for organizations using Privileged Identify Management (PIM) to maintain access to Power BI Sentinel, even if users only have temporary admin rights.

Change: Updated robustness for SQL Queries in table level lineage

Table level lineage has worked for some time now with both PowerQuery and with SQL Queries.

However there was a limit of how complex and large the SQL queries could be to still be supported.

We have implemented a significant upgrade of this functionality to cope with much larger and more complex queries, including nested CTEs.

This has been rolled out to the table lineage exported to your database, and we're now working on implementing this same enhancement into the Sentinel portal.

Change: Incremental Export

Sentinel now exports lineage to your database in an incremental way, instead of the previous daily full truncate/populate.

This speeds up the export process and allows for enhanced scalability.

Updated: Backend performance

Back end performance enhancements for lineage capture.

Other: Fabric!

We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes preparing for Fabric, and will continue to do so for the next 6-12 months.

Sentinel is already capturing audit logs for Fabric activity for you, and we have big plans for enhanced functionality across the board.

Watch this space!

(Released June13th 2023)

Table to Table Lineage!

New: Table to Table Lineage

Power BI Sentinel previously showed you which tables/views were used from your source databases for a given dataset.

We have now enhanced this, so that you can look at a specific dataset table, and see which source tables/views are used for that specific table.

Power BI Sentinel already had the most detailed lineage view available for Power BI, and this enhances is even further!

Change: More control over backups/documentation

You can now chose whether you want Sentinel to take backups, or just process documentation for a specific dataset or workspace.

In the Workspace Configure screen, previously your only options were daily or weekly backups.

Now you can choose between 'Documentation only', or 'Documentation and daily backups' or 'Documentation and weekly backups'.

New: Backup log

Sentinel now exports a log of all Power BI backups that it has taken, and saves this into your database.

This allows you to monitor backup types, sizes, failures and successes far more closely, from within a Power BI report, or other SQL query tool.

Updated: Backend performance

Back end performance enhancements for lineage capture.

(Released December 11th 2022)

General Enhancements and Bug Fixes

New: 'IsDeleted' flag

Power BI Sentinel now adds an 'IsDeleted' flag to the lineage tables in your database.

This enables you to still track entities that have been deleted, if required.

This applies to workspaces, datasets, reports, datasources and dataflows.

Fixed: Change tracking

A small number of customers were reporting an error when using change tracking, due to a bug preventing access to the metadata snapshots.

This has been resolved in this version.

Updated: Backend performance

Back end performance enhancements for lineage capture.

(Released June 27th 2022)

Endorsements and Sensitivity Label support

New: Endorsements

Power BI Sentinel now supports endorsements; whether a dataset is flagged as 'promoted' or 'certified'.

This is shown in the data lineage screens against each dataset as a 'P' or 'C'  icon respectively, and is also exported into your database for your own reporting.

New: Sensitivity Labels

Sentinel now detects whether a dataset has a sensitivity label applied, and shows this as a padlock on the data lineage screens, as well as being exported to your own database for your own reporting.

New: Comments export

Sentinel now exports your comments/documentation to your database to make it easier to view any commentary that your team have added to any documentation; including tables, data sources, measures, etc.

Fixed: Dataset refresh Schedule

A bug in the dataset refresh export has now been fixed, so this data now correctly links to your dataset table.

(Released April 12th 2022)

Snowflake Enhanced Lineage

New: Support for Enhanced table/view level lineage for Snowflake

Power BI Sentinel now supports enhanced table/view level data lineage from within Snowflake all the way through your Power BI estate.

This is supported for Import and DQ, and for Power Query and SQL Query, if you have Power BI Premium, PPU or Embedded capacity.

Without Premium capacity, you'll still get lineage for Snowflake, just not down to the table/view level.

Fixed: App Permissions

Following a recent fix to the Power BI API, App permissions are now retrieved by Power BI Sentinel, and are exported into your own database for your reporting.

(Released March 30th 2022)

Paginated Report Support, and Enhanced Lineage

New: Paginated Report Support!

By popular demand, we have now built in support for Power BI Paginated Reports, providing disaster recovery, lineage and auditing functionality.

Sentinel will now include these in your daily backups, as well as generating data lineage details. You can also now see who has created, changed or consumed paginated reports in the audit and usage logs.

New: Dataset Refresh History

Power BI Sentinel already exports your lineage, permissions, documentation and audit logs to your own database. Now we also export a rolling 90 days of dataset refresh history, giving you one place to easily monitor your dataset health.

Update: Enhanced Data Lineage

Power BI Sentinel's enhanced Data Lineage functionality has just got even more enhanced!

Previously Power BI Premium customers could get table and view level lineage for PowerQuery tables.

Now this also supports custom SQL queries as well as stored procedures.

Update: Workspace Search Bar

For larger tenants, scrolling through hundreds or workspaces can be frustrating, so we've added a search bar to make it easier for you to find the workspace you want to look at. This is in addition to the 'Premium' filter already available.

(Released February 23rd 2022)

Logging Update

Update: Logging to now use Power BI API, not o365

Historically your usage and audit logs have been retrieved from your Office 365 Unified Audit Log.

This has sometimes been difficult due to requiring o365 Global Admin, or updated o365 role permissions to access this.

We're now changing this to take advantage of new functionality releaed by Microsoft, to source these logs directly from the Power BI API instead.

This simplifies setup, maintenance and management, and means that you only need to have 'Powe BI Admin' rights to access this, instead of enhanced o365 permissions.

Fixed: Lineage right click

The right click options in the lineage views have been enhanced, to fill in some gaps for permissions etc.

Issue Identified: Permissions

Note that we've identified a bug in Microsoft's Power BI API, which sometimes results in Sentinel receiving an incomplete Permissions list from Power BI.

We're actively working with Microsoft on this issue.

(Released January 12th 2022)

Big dataset backups!

New: Backup Incremental and Large datasets

Historically Microsoft have not allowed backups for large datasets or incremental refresh datasets. This has now changed, and we've upgraded Sentinel to support this!

Power BI Premium customers can now set up an Azure Storage account linked to each workspace within the Power BI portal.

Sentinel will detect this, and will trigger a backup of datasets to this storage account where the dataset can't be backed up through the traditional 'pbix download' approach.

New: Dataset Refresh History

Sentinel now exports the refresh history of your datasets to your Azure SQL DB, so you can easily monitor and report on refresh issues.

Update: New Home Page

The Power BI Sentinel portal home page has now been updated to give you better visibility on which workspaces and reports are included in your Sentinel monitoring.

Update: Risk Report

The new Risk Report now shows far more details on your backup history and any errors.

(Released December 15th 2021)

This is a BIG release that you're going to LOVE!

New: Power BI Permissions

Now view who has access to workspaces, datasets, reports and Apps from within the Sentinel portal. Gain greater visibility of your security and data exposure.

New: Apps

Sentinel now includes Apps within the lineage views.

New: Create your OWN Power BI reports for Lineage, Documentation and Permissions!

The Power BI Sentinel portal is great for viewing your lineage, documentation and now even permissions, but now we're empowering you even further as we also export all of this into your OWN database, so you're able to create your own reports against this data.

What’s New?

• This is one of the biggest feature updates of Sentinel this year and we’re hugely excited by it!

  It allows you to quickly and easily see which tables and views in your data sources are used by each dataset or report, providing a level of Power BI governance never before possible.

  Use this for table level impact analysis prior to making a change to your sources, more granular GDPR assessments, and for improved transparency over where your data is being exposed.

  We currently support Power Query importing from SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, MySQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, Excel, Azure Blob Storage, and Azure Table Storage, and we’ll be adding more soon.

  This feature is in public preview, turn it on in your ‘Configure’ screen.

What’s New?

• The key to finding out which of your datasets have permissions applied to them is now showing in the data lineage. Simply look for the key icon to identify secured datasets in your Power BI environment.

What’s New?

• Sentinel now tracks Power BI usage, storing log data in your own secure Azure SQL Database, which you can report on within Power BI, and retain for as long as you like.

What’s New?

• In order to let you have a sneak peek of the future you will now find the Sentinel Preview option on your configure page. We will be adding tasters of new functionality, when available, for users to have a play with! Our first one is Data Flows. As Microsoft continue to push forward developing this area, we will be right there with them helping you get a feel for what’s coming.

• We love our new diagrams and we are sure you will too! They look great and give you a little bit more with the option to expand to full screen and see all the links you need. Right-click and check out the table details then download the view you need for an offline copy to use however you wish.

• Looking after your payments is hugely important to us and we are now 3-D Secure enabled to help support the banks additional layers of security for online card transactions.

What’s New?

• Share the info and remember it’s good to talk! If you need to explain or highlight information for other users relating to datasets, connections, tables and more? You now have the option to add and edit comments relating to your reports. Any comments can be identified, highlighted and exported within your documentation .pdf  and to view any existing comments simply hover over the speech bubble icon.

• Get to that report when you are in a hurry.  The risk assessment and data lineage export .csv files now contain a URL link that you can copy into your browser and open up the Power BI report you need straight away.

• Admins suffering with too many personal workspaces under the same name now rest at ease. We have included Workspace ID under workspace display name to help identify who they really belong to.

What’s New?

View any changes in calculated columns and measures as part of the tracking functionality.

Expose datasets to do your own reporting from .csv files saved to your own BLOB storage.

Move through changes in the JSON information quicker with the View Previous and View Next Modification buttons.

Use Column Search to now locate measures needed.

What’s New?

Backup to your preferred timezone +\- UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) through the Backup Time Config.

Get your Risk information straight to any email device on a daily or weeklybasis so you are always a step ahead with the Sign up to Risk Assessment Report option.

What’s New?

• With the new Risk Assessment Report you can see the latest Backup and Dataset Refresh results all in one place.
• For admins who need to sign up users without Office 365 email accounts use the new Copy URL function and email the required access link to them.

What's New?

• You know it’s there somewhere but where? We have added a new search function so that you can find those elusive columns in your Data sources.That’s still there? - following on from the search you can now see any unused columns in your data sources.

  And for the real cherry on top... Cross the bridge between data source and data set with the addition of the Power Query M Code. Offering complete documentation alongside the DAX code, developers can now save time and easily see and re-use M code from other datasets. Exciting times!

What’s New?

• As your day gets busier and busier, we can now give you a prod to configure your workspace and check your backups are working the way you want with handy email reminders.

What’s New?

• Don’t get held back, get more Reports for your buck with our new licence upgrades Professional 250 and Enterprise 1000 and 5000, to manage 250, 1000 and 5000 reports respectively.
• Stay up to date with the Manage Your Subscription section and keep on top of your customer details, billing details and payment details.
• What’s the latest? Click on the Version Number in the app to get the latest Fixed/Changed/New.
• Wait…I backed that up too!…and they did! Manage your tenant backups globally to avoid multiple copies of the same thing, saving you storage space.

What’s New?

• We have added a new backup on demand button giving you the ability to back up as required in addition to the scheduled daily and weekly options.
• The data source explorer has been introduced so now you have the option to explore from the Data source through to report as well as the original lineage explorer.
• By double clicking on the datasets you can now see the refresh schedule set up in your Power BI reports. Making sure that what you are looking at is up to date and on the correct schedule.
• By double clicking on the data source you can now see the gateway detail as part of the overall diagram. Because you can never have too much information about your Power BI estate.
• To make life easier you can now download the required backup file directly from within change tracking to speed recovery.
• And the cherry on top!  My workspace lineage explorer is now updated to the new API so Enterprise admins can now see reports, datasets & data sources from everyone's My Workspace in their organisation