Optimized Capacity Monitoring with Power Platform

A Comprehensive Review of Power Platform Capacity Monitoring

The original post delves into the significance of the Power Platform Capacity Monitoring feature. Over the past few years, a common thread of deficiency has become apparent: organizations struggling to track capacity usage accurately and reliably over time.

This insight led the author to discover three different types of capacity within Power Platform environments, labeled as File, Log, and Data. These cater to various needs, such as storing uploaded attachments or auditing purposes.

The post then elaborates on these types of capacity. Broadly speaking, File holds all attachments uploaded directly into Dataverse, Log is used for auditing purposes, and Data holds virtually everything else, hence the name. This information is made available in the Power Platform Admin Center, under ‘Resources/Capacity’.

Screenshots illustrate capacity allocation by licenses, which shows where available capacity has been derived from. An overview of specific environments reveals not only the total usage per capacity type but also which tables are consuming more data.

However, subsequent probing into this functionality reveals some limitations. Although it's feasible to conduct manual data exports, automation lacks. Further, as of now, querying underlying records which hold these values isn't possible. Therefore, an organization striving to view historical data or predict data trends might find the process cumbersome without a built-in automation feature.

Addressing these gaps, the PowerCAT team from Microsoft continually iterate and improve existing features in the Power Platform. However, there is currently no capacity monitoring functionality within it. Find more Information here.

Aiming at providing a solution, the author initiates the development of a capacity-monitoring tool, sharing it through GitHub, and introducing a Model-Driven App and a Reporting Dashboard. The intention is to continually refine the tool, ensuring security, versatility, and ease of use.

The tool's audience primarily consists of IT and Power Platform admins already using the Microsoft CoE toolkit. The author welcomes feedback, suggestions, and problem reports from users to improve the tool and tailor it as per user requirements.

The author concludes by expressing an interest in hearing how this tool can support users or organizations. Further iterations of this tool are expected as the technology advances and user requirements evolve.

General Overview on Power Platform Capacity Monitoring

Power Platform Capacity Monitoring provides essential metrics for organizations to evaluate and track their data usage. Its triple capacity types, namely File, Log, and Data, dedicated to various functions serve unique needs. However, there is a gap concerning automation and historical data assessment. Tailoring a solution to bridge this gap, the initiative of developing a dedicated tool is a leap forward to meet admins' and organizations' requirements more effectively. Considering users' suggestions and feedback is crucial for its vital evolution.

Read the full article Power Platform Capacity Monitoring

Learn about Power Platform Capacity Monitoring

Microsoft Power Platform has emerged as a game-changer amidst customer engagements, its dynamic capacity setting it apart from other solutions. Users feel the need for tracking their capacity utilization with time, but it often becomes a complicated task.

For those unfamiliar with the system, the Power Platform encompasses three forms of capacity usage in its environment - File, Log, and Data. While File comprises all attachments uploaded to Dataverse, Log caters to auditing requirements, and Data essentially holds all other information.

These data are readily available in the Power Platform Admin Centre, specifically in the ‘Resources/Capacity’ section. You can observe here your available capacity allocation through licenses and the source of your capacity availability.

Delving deeper, you can explore a particular environment within the platform and understand the overall usage per capacity type. Additionally, you can identify which tables are accessing the most data. However, while this provides a snapshot into the current scenario, such data extraction remains a manual process and isn't automated.

As of now, the ability to query the underlying records holding these values remains far-fetched. In the absence of this feature, an organisation, wishing to view its historical data usage or predict future data trends, finds itself in a tight spot. If they wish to foresee their requirements or scaling strategies for the next six months, there's no direct way for doing it. Instead, they would need to manually store and report the values, which is an undoubtedly tedious task.

However, the Microsoft Power Platform has come a long way in enhancing its features and functionalities. The Centre of Excellence (CoE) Starter Toolkit provided by the PowerCAT team from Microsoft has been a fantastic addition. Despite the current lack of capacity monitoring in it, it does offer features like notification alerts when capacity reaches a certain value.

Addressing the challenge regarding capacity monitoring, the author of the blog decided to develop a monitoring tool to facilitate the same. This capacity monitoring tool is being launched as a means to contribute to the community and aid others. The tool, hosted on GitHub, can be accessed via the shared link in the blog.

The tool includes a Model-Driven App and a Reporting Dashboard. The tool was released with multiple ideas to enhance it further and modify its functionality. Each tool release will be accompanied by respective release notes and vital information (like security requirements to run it). Gratitude to Matt Collins-Jones for reviewing some of the work associated with this.

The tool caters primarily to IT admins familiar with the Microsoft CoE toolkit solution and those with appropriate access to it. The author welcomes any issues to be raised as a GitHub Issue item for solution.

In conclusion, this tool pushes the boundaries of the Power Platform's capabilities. The author is interested in gathering insights on how the tool could prove beneficial to you or your organizations. Feel free to leave a comment or a suggestion on how to improve the tool. The goal is to continually learn, iterate, and deliver an even more refined version to provide the best user experience.

More links on about Power Platform Capacity Monitoring

Environment capacity management & alerting - Power ...

May 4, 2022 — Receive capacity alerts. Power Platform Admins will receive notifications if environments are over or 80% close to their approved capacity.

Tutorial: Create a daily capacity report (preview)

Mar 28, 2022 — This tutorial will demonstrate how to use the Power Platform API (preview) to create a daily capacity report.

New Microsoft Dataverse storage capacity - Power Platform

Sep 1, 2023 — Verifying your new storage model. Sign in to the Power Platform admin center, and then select an environment. Select Resources > Capacity > ...

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