Adding country-based filtering to Microsoft 365 Usage Analytics

Office 365

A couple of weeks ago the Microsoft 365 Usage Analytics app in Power BI was updated, as it is long overdue.

The main benefit of the “updated” app is largely a visual refresh and focuses on core workloads and services: Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Skype for Business, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and Office 365 Groups. Unfortunately none of the other apps or services are included, so organisations are still left flying blind when it comes to usage of Planner, Power Apps / Automate / BI, Sway, To Do, Whiteboard, Forms, Bookings, Stream, etc.

The Problem

A fellow MVP asked how to show country information in the dashboard (as it doesn’t show up by default) for scenarios where organisations have people located in multiple locations, so I took it upon myself to find out. Initially I thought the answer would be in exporting the underlying data and creating your own visual however that isn’t ideal – especially for people who are not fantastic with Excel (like me).

As you can see in this example for Microsoft Teams, there’s no “country” field before it starts diving into data:

The Solution

Looking at the resources page it states that the data can be sliced to show additional information such as country:

There are a few simple steps to add country data (or any other available column for that matter).

Word of caution, advice and encouragement: I am an Excel and Power BI novice, so if I can do it – you can do it.

 

1. Edit the report

At the top of the report page, hit the ellipsis to find the Edit button:

 

2. Bring up the slicers for the area you want to edit

 

3. Add the field you want to use

In this case we want to add the LocationCountry field under UserState, so just search for the term and select it

 

4. Move the column to make it more viewable

By default the additional column will be put at the end, however you can move it to wherever you like by dragging it:


5. Exit the edit view

Click on Save, then Reading view to take you back to your report:

 

Presto, you now have country for your filtering enjoyment!

 

Here’s a walk-through of the process from start to finish: