BI Pixie User Guide
BI Pixie is a telemetry and intelligence platform for Power BI. It adds invisible tracking elements called Pixies to your Power BI reports that capture user engagement data: page views, visual clicks, filter selections, bookmark navigation, tooltip views, drill-through actions, surveys, and feedback responses.
The Pixies are tiny, native Power BI visuals and hidden measures that work silently inside your reports. They detect interactions and send events to BI Pixie's hosted infrastructure, where you can analyze adoption, engagement, and user satisfaction using the BI Pixie Dashboard.
How BI Pixie Works
BI Pixie is a fully hosted service. There is nothing to install or deploy in your Azure or Power Platform environment. If you prefer to host BI Pixie in your own environment, see the Self-Hosted guide. Here is how the hosted service works:
- Sign in: Go to app.bipixie.com and sign in with your Microsoft work or school account. Your account is provisioned automatically.
- Connect to Power BI: In the BI Pixie portal, connect your Power BI account to browse your workspaces.
- Add Pixies to your reports: Select a workspace, choose the reports you want to track usage from, and click to add Pixies. BI Pixie will add invisible tracking elements to your reports.
- Collect engagement data: Once your tracked reports are in use, the Pixies send usage and engagement events to BI Pixie's hosted infrastructure as your audience interacts with the reports.
- Analyze your audience: Use the BI Pixie Dashboard (a Power BI template app available on Microsoft AppSource) to analyze adoption, engagement, user satisfaction, performance, and more.
Key Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Tracked Events | Track page views, visual clicks, filter selections, bookmark clicks, tooltip views, drill-through actions, and link clicks across all your Power BI reports. |
| Feedback Controls (Pro) | Add thumbs-up/down or smile/frown feedback buttons to your reports and measure user satisfaction. |
| Embedded Surveys (Pro) | Embed fully customizable surveys directly inside your Power BI reports, including NPS, business value, time-saved, decision-making, issues, and email questions. |
| RLS Auditing (Pro) | Audit Row-Level Security (RLS) in real time to detect misconfigurations, overexposed data, and potential security risks. |
| Data Management | Search, preview, and delete tracked user data. Configure data retention periods and delete end-user activity records upon request for GDPR compliance. |
| User Adoption and Attrition | Monitor who uses your reports, how often, and identify users who stopped engaging. Distinguish between active users (clicks, slicer selections) and passive users (page views only). |
| Dashboard KPIs | Track key metrics out of the box: active users, engagement rate, sessions, average session duration, pages per session, NPS, satisfaction rate, estimated business value, and estimated time saved. |
| Time Intelligence | Analyze engagement trends over time, track adoption and attrition patterns, and measure the impact of report design changes on user behavior. |
| Custom Analytics | Connect to the BI Pixie semantic model from Power BI Desktop to build your own custom report pages, visuals, and navigation links tailored to your organization's needs. |
| License Assignment (Enterprise) | Assign licenses to business units or cost centers with built-in chargeback, enabling decentralized tracking across your organization. |
| Per-License Data Isolation (Enterprise) | Each license gets its own isolated storage, ensuring strict data separation between business units or teams. |
| Data Sovereignty (Enterprise) | Choose the Azure region where your telemetry data is stored to meet data residency and regulatory requirements. |
| Team Collaboration | Invite team members with Admin or Member roles, manage access requests, and control who can configure tracking settings. |
The BI Pixie Portal
The BI Pixie portal at app.bipixie.com is where you manage everything. The portal sidebar provides access to these pages:
| Page | Purpose | Visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Your home page with onboarding checklist, plan usage, and BI Pixie Dashboard installation. | Everyone |
| Managed Reports | View all tracked reports and manage report tracking. Use "Check for events" to verify in real time that the Pixies are working and capturing engagement data from your reports. | Everyone |
| Settings | Configure tracking options, feedback controls, and surveys at the account, workspace, or report level. | Everyone |
| Data Management | Manage data retention, search user data, and delete activity records. | Everyone |
| Team | Invite members, manage roles, and approve access requests. | Admin only |
| Licenses | Create and assign licenses to business units or cost centers. Each license gets its own isolated storage, enabling chargeback and decentralized tracking across your organization. | Admin only (Enterprise) |
| Account | View plan and usage, manage tracking keys, edit profile, and request a data region change or vote for a new region. | Everyone |
Additional pages are accessible from within the portal but do not appear in the sidebar: Add Pixies, available from the Managed Reports page, and Plans, available from the Overview and Account pages.
What You Will Need
- A Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) work or school account
- Power BI reports published to workspaces where you have Contributor, Member, or Admin role
What's Next
- Getting Started — Sign in and complete your first setup in the BI Pixie portal.
- Add Pixies to Your Reports — Instrument your Power BI reports with tracking Pixies.