What does the Power BI Health Check cover?

It covers the agreed Power BI estate across ownership, model architecture, data refresh, report performance, security, governance, release process, capacity and cost. The proposal names the tenant, workspaces and representative content in scope before the review begins.

How long does it take?

The standard Power BI Health Check takes two weeks. Access and interviews are arranged before the start so the review can focus on evidence rather than administration. The exact meeting schedule may vary, but the fixed engagement window does not.

Is the Health Check fixed-price?

Yes. The scope and fixed price are agreed before work starts. Microsoft licensing, travel or any separately requested implementation work is not hidden inside the diagnostic fee.

Do you make changes during the Health Check?

Not by default. The Health Check diagnoses, validates and prioritises. An urgent safeguard may be recommended immediately, but remediation is scoped separately so findings are not distorted by an assumption that Hopton must sell the fix.

What access will Hopton need?

Access depends on the agreed scope and should follow least privilege. It commonly includes representative workspaces, models, reports, refresh evidence, usage information and capacity metrics, plus interviews with an administrator, report owner and business consumer.

Will the report be useful if our internal team implements the actions?

Yes. The report records the observation, evidence, consequence, priority and recommended action so an internal team or another competent partner can use it. There is no obligation to appoint Hopton for implementation.

What happens after the Health Check?

There are four possible outcomes: make a small set of internal fixes, commission focused remediation, establish a wider governance or rebuild programme, or leave part of the estate unchanged because it is already fit for purpose. The playback makes that route explicit.

Two-week, fixed-price diagnostic

Power BI Health Check

Find the technical and governance issues weakening trust in your Power BI estate. Hopton reviews the models, refresh, workspaces, security, performance, capacity and content sprawl, then gives you a written, prioritised action plan.

Discuss a Power BI Health Check See exactly what is reviewed

Fixed scope. Fixed price agreed before work starts. The report is useful whether Hopton, your internal team or another partner implements the recommendations.

Two weekstypical duration

Fixed priceagreed before access begins

Written reportwith evidence and priorities

Independent outputno obligation to commission a rebuild

When to use it

Your Power BI estate works, but not reliably enough

A Health Check is the right starting point when Power BI is already in use and the organisation needs evidence before deciding what to repair, govern, retire or rebuild.

Reports disagree.

Important measures have been recreated across files or datasets and no owner can explain which definition is authoritative.

Refreshes fail or run too long.

Data is late, gateways are fragile or transformation work is happening in the wrong layer.

Reports are slow.

Poor model shape, inefficient DAX, excessive visuals, source latency or capacity pressure is affecting adoption.

Workspaces have sprawled.

Dev, Test and Prod are unclear, unused content remains published and access has accumulated person by person.

Security is hard to prove.

Row-level security, sharing, workspace roles or external access have grown without a consistent test and ownership process.

Capacity cost is rising.

Workloads, refresh peaks and model behaviour have not been related to the capacity being paid for.

Knowledge sits with one person.

Models, transformations and release steps are not documented well enough for dependable ownership.

More build work is planned.

Leadership wants to know whether the current foundation can support it before adding reports, Fabric or AI.

If no Power BI estate exists yet, use a scoping call or Establish phase. If the main question is whether to modernise a legacy ERP or adopt Fabric, use the Reporting Modernisation Assessment instead.

What is reviewed

Seven layers of Power BI health

The Health Check follows a repeatable framework, then goes deeper where the evidence shows the greatest risk. It does not judge success by the number of issues found.

Review area	What Hopton examines	Examples of evidence
Estate and ownership	Workspaces, apps, reports, semantic models, owners, usage and lifecycle	Inventory, usage metrics, endorsements, named owners, inactive content
Model architecture	Star-schema use, relationships, calculated columns, measures, model duplication and storage mode	Model metadata, relationship design, measure patterns, shared-model reuse
Data and refresh	Sources, gateways, credentials, transformations, incremental refresh, failure history and freshness	Refresh history, gateway configuration, Power Query patterns, source dependencies
Performance	Report load, DAX, model size, visual density, source latency and user experience	Performance Analyzer, DAX/query evidence, model statistics, representative page tests
Security and governance	Workspace roles, Entra ID groups, row-level security, sharing, labels, endorsements and auditability	Group assignments, role definitions, test users, tenant and workspace settings where in scope
Release and change	Dev/Test/Prod separation, deployment pipelines, version control, sign-off and rollback	Workspace structure, deployment history, release checklist, ownership records
Capacity and cost	Capacity assignment, utilisation, refresh peaks, workload behaviour and licensing fit	Capacity Metrics evidence, SKU, user pattern, peak utilisation and workload schedule

The Health Check samples representative content and reviews the estate at the level agreed in the proposal. It is not a line-by-line audit of every DAX expression, report page or tenant setting unless that scope is explicitly included.

How it works

A focused two-week review with evidence at each step

Before the review: scope and access

Agree the tenant, workspaces, representative reports, stakeholders and access method. Confirm any restrictions on sensitive data and whether anonymised screenshots are required in the report.

Days 1 to 3: inventory and interviews

Map the estate, owners, critical reports, refresh pattern, known incidents and business concerns. Speak with the administrator, one or more report owners and at least one decision-maker or consumer.

Days 4 to 7: technical and governance review

Review the agreed models, reports, workspaces, refresh, security, release process and capacity evidence. Record findings with enough context for another competent team to understand them.

Days 8 and 9: validation and prioritisation

Test important assumptions with the client, distinguish symptoms from root causes and rank actions by risk, value, effort and dependency.

Day 10: playback and written report

Present the findings, answer questions and agree immediate actions. Deliver the written report in a form the client can use internally or share with another implementation partner.

The exact meeting days may vary with access and stakeholder availability, but the standard engagement remains a two-week fixed-price review.

What we need from you

Enough access to test the estate, not a month of preparation

A named sponsor and day-to-day contact.
Power BI administrator or appropriate read-only access for the agreed review areas.
Access to the representative workspaces, semantic models and reports in scope.
Refresh and gateway evidence where refresh is in scope.
Capacity Metrics evidence where capacity is in scope.
A list of business-critical reports and known incidents.
One administrator or platform-owner interview.
One report-owner or developer interview.
One consumer or decision-owner interview.
Any security, data-residency or screenshot restrictions that affect evidence collection.

Hopton should use the least privilege necessary for the review. Access should be time-bound where the client's policy allows it and removed after delivery.

What you receive

A written action plan, not a score with no route forward

1
Executive summary.
The most important risks, strengths and decisions in plain language.
2
Estate view.
The agreed inventory and ownership picture, with significant gaps identified.
3
Evidence-backed findings.
Each issue states the observation, evidence, consequence and affected area.
4
Prioritised recommendations.
Actions are sequenced rather than presented as one undifferentiated backlog.
5
Immediate safeguards.
Any urgent security, continuity or production risks that should be addressed first.
6
90-day improvement plan.
A practical sequence for stabilisation, governance and high-value remediation.
7
Longer-term options.
Rebuild, migration, capacity or Fabric decisions only where the evidence supports them.
8
Playback session.
A structured walkthrough with questions and named owners for the next decisions.

Priority model

Priority	Meaning	Expected treatment
Critical	Material security, continuity or trust risk	Protect or contain immediately; assign an owner
High	Significant effect on reliability, cost or decision quality	Plan into the first remediation wave
Medium	Important improvement with manageable short-term risk	Sequence after critical foundations
Low	Optimisation or housekeeping	Complete when dependencies and capacity allow

The report separates what should be fixed now, what should be planned and what is not worth changing. It does not assume that every issue requires a consultancy project.

Pick the correct diagnostic

Health Check, assessment or build?

Starting point	Use it when	Main output	Typical duration
Power BI Health Check	An existing Power BI estate is unreliable, slow, costly or poorly governed	Findings and prioritised improvement plan	Two weeks
Reporting Modernisation Assessment	Legacy ERP/reporting and the future platform route are unresolved	Independent recommendation, architecture and roadmap	Four weeks
Report design review	One report needs a focused usability and visual-quality review	Page-level issues and design actions	Define separately
Establish phase	The target outcome is understood and a governed build needs to be scoped	Architecture, priorities, plan and fixed Build scope	Commonly four weeks

Explore the Reporting Modernisation Assessment See the Analytics Acceleration Programme

Why diagnosis comes first

Wasabi: stabilise the estate before extending it

Wasabi had invested in the Microsoft stack, but the reporting estate was underperforming and the business could not fully rely on it. Hopton stabilised the estate first, then rebuilt dependable foundations across Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure and Business Central.

More than 40 restaurant P&Ls, central kitchens and grocery were brought into one trusted view. With the estate reliable, the work moved into ongoing enhancement and machine learning. The lesson is simple: diagnose and steady the foundation before adding the next layer.

Read the Wasabi case study

Common questions

Power BI Health Check: scope, access and next steps

Get an evidence-based view

Discuss a Power BI Health Check

Tell us roughly how many workspaces and reports are in use, what is failing and whether performance, governance, security or cost is the main concern. We will confirm whether the Health Check is the right diagnostic before proposing it.

Describe your Power BI estate

Call 0113 512 2300|Email hello@hoptonanalytics.com

Other ways to get in touch

Call 0113 512 2300 Email hello@hoptonanalytics.com

Response within one working day. No obligation.