After the dashboards go live
Your reports are live and people open them every morning — but last week’s refresh failed after a password change, a visual broke when someone renamed a column at the source, and there is a list of small changes nobody has time to make. Our Power BI support and maintenance services handle that list: senior US-based engineers scope each batch of fixes at one fixed fee you approve first. No retainer, no bank of hours.
Representative dashboard — sample data
What you get
A Power BI report rarely breaks all at once. It works on the day it is published, then the passwords, source systems, people and questions around it change while the report does not. Maintenance is keeping the two in step.
A scheduled refresh that keeps failing is eventually switched off by the service, and the report quietly shows older and older numbers. We read the refresh history, fix the cause rather than just re-running it, and turn the schedule back on.
On-premises data usually reaches Power BI through a gateway on somebody’s server, using somebody’s credentials. When that password expires or that person leaves, every report behind it stops refreshing. We repair the connection and record what depends on it.
A column renamed in the finance system or a sheet restructured in Excel is enough to leave a visual showing an error instead of a chart. We trace the break back through Power Query and the model, and fix it where it started.
A DAX measure written for last year’s product lines or regions can start returning totals that nobody trusts. We find which measure is wrong and why, correct it, and check the pages that depend on it before anyone sees the new number.
People join, move teams and leave, and workspace roles, app audiences and row-level security drift away from who should see what. We bring access back into line and write down who owns each report and model.
A new filter, an extra column in a table visual, a KPI split by region, a page the sales team keeps asking for. None of it justifies a project; all of it matters to the people reading the report. We batch the list and price it once.
How it works
Through the form below: what broke, what people keep asking for, and roughly which reports matter most. A rough list is fine. We ask the questions needed to turn it into specific, testable items during a free consultation.
On the first engagement we read the semantic model, its data sources, its gateway and its refresh history once, so the quote reflects what is actually there. You get a written list of changes and a single fixed fee, and nothing starts until you approve it.
Changes are made and checked against real data before they are published, released with your sign-off, and noted in a change record for the report. Each batch is followed by 30 days of hypercare in case something we touched misbehaves.
A Power BI report is not a finished document. It is a set of visuals sitting on a semantic model, which refreshes from data sources through connections and, for on-premises data, a gateway — each owned by somebody, and each able to change underneath it. The report may not have been edited in a year and still go wrong on a Tuesday, because a database password rotated or a source column was renamed. Most maintenance work is not errors in the report’s design; it is the world around the report moving while the report stood still.
Refresh is the clearest example, because a failing refresh does not stay failing. Microsoft’s guide to configuring scheduled refresh (opens in new tab) explains that the service deactivates a refresh schedule after four consecutive failures, or straight away when it detects an error that needs a configuration change such as expired credentials — and that it pauses scheduled refresh on a semantic model nobody has viewed for two months. Either way the report keeps loading, just with old numbers, until someone notices. Gateways are the second example: Microsoft’s on-premises data gateway troubleshooting guide (opens in new tab) starts by telling you to confirm the gateway is on the latest version, because many connectivity and reliability issues are resolved in its monthly updates. A gateway installed once and never touched is a common reason reports stop refreshing.
Support here means keeping working reports working and making them a little better over time. The line matters because a request on the wrong side of it needs a different kind of engagement, and pricing it as maintenance would short-change you.
| The request | Handled as support? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A scheduled refresh has failed or been switched off | Yes | Cause found in the refresh history and fixed; schedule re-enabled and failure emails pointed at someone who reads them |
| Reports stopped refreshing after a password change or a departure | Yes | Gateway and data source credentials moved to accounts that will still exist; dependencies recorded |
| A visual shows an error after a change in the source system | Yes | Break traced through Power Query and the model, and fixed where it started |
| A DAX measure returns a total nobody trusts | Yes | Measure corrected and the pages that use it checked against source figures |
| Someone needs access, or should no longer have it | Yes | Workspace roles, app audiences and row-level security reconciled; owners named |
| New filters, columns, KPIs or report pages | Yes | Batched into a written change list at one fixed fee |
| Reports that work but take too long to load | No | That is a one-off project — see Power BI performance optimization consulting |
| Workspace sprawl and no agreed rules on who publishes what | No | That is a policy question — see Power BI governance consulting |
| A new dashboard for a different part of the business | No | That is a build — see custom Power BI dashboard development |
| A 24/7 desk that watches refreshes with a guaranteed response time | No | We do not offer monitoring or a service-level agreement; a managed service provider is the right fit for that |
The single most useful question is whether the reports work today. If people open them every morning and the numbers are mostly right, you need support: a list of fixes and changes, priced and delivered in batches. If the reports work but every page takes long enough that people have stopped waiting for them, that is not a string of small fixes; it is a measured, one-off piece of work, and our Power BI performance optimization consulting is scoped for exactly that. And if the reporting project never reached the people it was built for, or stalled when the builder left, you need our Power Platform project rescue services instead — an assessment first, then a repair-or-rebuild verdict. Starting with the wrong one wastes the first week.
If you also run Power Apps alongside your reports, the same batch-and-fixed-fee model applies to them through our Power Apps support and maintenance services, and one list can cover both. How our fixed-fee process works is the same for a batch of fixes as it is for a full build.
Microsoft already provides technical support for the Power BI service, and it is worth knowing where that line falls before paying anyone else. Its Power BI support and troubleshooting documentation (opens in new tab) is organised around the service: checking for outages and planned maintenance, preparing before you contact support, and creating a ticket. The model, the DAX, the visuals and the access rules inside your own reports are your organization’s work, and keeping them right is your team’s job.
| The problem | Microsoft support | This service |
|---|---|---|
| The Power BI service itself is down or misbehaving | Yes — service-wide outages and platform faults | We help confirm the fault is the platform’s and gather the refresh history and gateway logs a ticket needs |
| Billing, licences or subscriptions | Yes | No |
| A measure or visual in your report gives the wrong result | Your own report logic | Yes |
| Refresh fails because a password expired or a source changed | Your own configuration | Yes |
| Adding pages, filters, KPIs or users | No | Yes — scoped as a change |
The usual way to buy this is a monthly retainer for a set number of hours. We do not offer one. Maintenance work is lumpy — nothing for two months, then a failed refresh and three change requests in the same week — and a flat monthly fee means paying for the quiet months while the busy ones still run over. Instead, each batch of fixes and changes is written down as a list of specific items, each described by what changes, and the whole list carries one fixed fee you approve before work starts. When the list is empty, there is nothing to pay. We do not publish a price list, because the fee depends on what is in the batch and on how the model is built; the quote comes after the free consultation and, on the first batch, after reading the model.
We also do not watch your refreshes. Power BI can email named people when a scheduled refresh fails, and part of the first batch is usually making sure those emails go to someone who still works there and reads them. That way you hear about a failure from the service, not from a manager asking why the numbers look old.
The usual fit is a small or mid-size business with a handful of Power BI reports in daily use — a sales dashboard, a finance pack, an operations scorecard — built by a contractor, an agency or a capable colleague who has since moved on to other work. The reports are valued, nobody wants to rebuild them, and there is no one left whose job it is to keep them refreshing and correct.
It fits badly in two cases. If you need someone on call overnight with a contractual response time, that is a managed service provider, not us. And if the reports never worked properly, the honest answer is a rescue or a rebuild, and we will say so during the consultation rather than sell a string of fixes that will not hold. Work is delivered remotely across all US states from our Orange County, CA base, by senior US-based engineers.
Related services
For reports that work but are slow: a measured, one-off project on the model, DAX and visuals.
Agreed rules for workspaces, semantic models, sharing and ownership, so the sprawl stops growing.
For a build that never worked or stalled halfway: an independent assessment, then a fixed-fee takeover.
FAQ
No. There is no retainer and no bank of hours to use up. You send us the list of what has broken or needs changing, we scope it, and the batch carries one fixed fee you approve in writing before any work starts. In a month when nothing needs doing, you pay nothing.
We do not sell a contractual response time or watch your refreshes for you, and we would rather say so here than in a dispute later. A refresh failure is scoped and scheduled like any other fix, with the date written into the scope. If you need someone on call overnight, a managed service provider is the better fit.
Yes, provided they work today. On the first batch we read the semantic model, its data sources, its gateway and refresh setup and who owns them, because nobody can honestly price a change to something they have not seen. If that read shows the reports never really worked, we will tell you it is a rescue, not support.
Performance optimization is a one-off project for reports that work but are slow: it measures where the time goes and fixes the model, the DAX and the visuals behind it. Support is the running list of small breakages and changes on reports that are fast enough already. If speed is the problem, that is a project.
Microsoft supports the Power BI service itself: outages, platform faults and tickets raised through its support channels. The semantic model, DAX measures, visuals and access rules in your reports are your organization's own work, and changing those is your team's job, not Microsoft's. We cover that layer, and help you gather what a ticket needs when the fault is Microsoft's.
Whatever is on your list, provided it is maintenance rather than a new report: a failed refresh, a gateway connection to repair, a measure returning the wrong total, a visual that broke when a column was renamed, a new user who needs access, an extra filter. Each item is tested before release and covered by 30 days of hypercare.
Book a free consultation
Tell us what you’re trying to fix — a report, an approval process, an intranet, a Copilot rollout. We scope it as a fixed-fee project, you approve, and a senior engineer delivers in 2–4 weeks.
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we’ll reply within one business day.