FAQ

Why is the dashboard license time limited?

Standard Power BI licenses are free and can currently be added to a user’s Office 365 account within 24hrs. Soon, when the University moves to an updated Office 365 license, they will be part of a user’s standard applications. The trial is for an enhanced license version that is a default offering for all users when they first login to Power BI – it’s a Microsoft enticement to purchase a more expensive license. Users of this dashboard won’t need the enhanced license.

Why can’t I select ‘Data with current layout’?

Occasionally a 3rd export option may be presented to you to export the ‘Data with current layout’ however in some instances these options may not be selectable, this has been raised with Microsoft as a possible bug.

Third Party Option

There’s a cost discrepancy between Azure Portal & LASER Dashboard

A variance between the LASER Power BI Dashboard costs which come directly from Azure and the monthly IT finance costs may be seen, this is due to discounts and surcharges included in IT Finances calculations as part of a 3rd party supplier contract but not part of the raw Azure costs.

For your attention

The following are elements of the current Dashboard that you should be aware of:

When viewing the Project Costs page;

  • The data is shown at a ‘per day’ aggregate and therefore overtime it is possible that not all of the data will be visible on the initial screen. You may have to scroll to see the remaining data.
  • Resources in the table are not stacked by order of the most constant at the base.
  • During the initial creation of a research projects resources in Azure (virtual machines, databases, storage) and during migration of data and databases into a research project there may be time limited but greater than average costs (spikes) incurred. If you have any questions about these please contact the DAT to discuss.

When exporting data from the Dashboard the date and time may not be in UK or 24hr format, check your local system settings and if they are not set to UK or 24hr format then update them and try a re-export of the data.

When exporting the data from ‘Top 5 resources Total (year to date)’ or ‘Top 5 resources Monthly (year to date)’ sections of the Landing Page then Project ID and Project Name may be missing from rows in the summarised data export.

The date in the Dashboard banner may not be in UK format.

There are variations in the data export settings across the different sections that can be exported;

  • Dates may be stored in separate columns (year/ month/ day) and not aggregated together.
  • Project ID and Project name may not always be exported for all fields.
  • Resource type and Sub type man not always be exported.
  • After export columns may not be in a consistent order.