PowerBIreportinggovernance

KPI dashboards for tool consolidation: Building a Power BI + SharePoint toolkit

ssharepoint

2026-01-29

10 min read

Instrument usage, cost, and security KPIs with SharePoint lists + Power BI to make data-driven tool retirement decisions fast and auditable.

Cut SaaS sprawl: use SharePoint lists + Power BI to decide what to retire

Too many tools, unclear value, rising bills: if that sounds like your environment, you’re not alone. By 2026 IT teams face more SaaS proliferation, AI-driven point tools, and tighter FinOps and consolidation programs than ever. This guide shows a practical, repeatable way to instrument usage, cost, and security KPIs using SharePoint lists as a low-friction operational store and Power BI as the analytics and decision platform — so you can make confident, data-driven tool retirement decisions.

Why this approach matters in 2026

Late 2025 and early 2026 accelerated two forces: (1) renewed FinOps and consolidation programs as organizations balance AI/ML subscription growth against operational overhead, and (2) stronger compliance/security demands after high-profile supply chain incidents. Microsoft has continued expanding Microsoft Graph telemetry and Microsoft 365 usage reports, but raw telemetry is noisy. A pragmatic hybrid approach — capture consolidated metrics in SharePoint lists, enrich with Graph and cost APIs, then visualize in Power BI — gives you:

Operational control: SharePoint lists are auditable, permissioned, and editable by stakeholders (product owners, procurement, security).
Low friction data capture: lightweight forms and Power Automate flows onboard product owners and capture contractual data, renewal dates, and shadow-IT discoveries.
Enterprise-grade analytics: Power BI handles trend analysis, anomaly detection, and integrates with existing Microsoft 365 identity and governance tools.

Core KPIs to instrument

Define a small, action-oriented KPI set so dashboards drive decisions (not paralysis). Group them into three pillars:

Usage KPIs

Monthly Active Users (MAU) — unique authenticated users per month.
Frequency — average sessions per active user per month.
Feature adoption — % of users leveraging core features that justify the license.
Overlap score — similarity of feature sets between tools (helps identify duplicates).

Cost KPIs

Total cost — monthly subscription spend.
Cost per active user (CPA) = Total Cost / MAU.
Contract leakage — unused seats or overprovisioning.
Normalized TCO — include integration, support, and change management costs (amortized).

Security & Risk KPIs

Number of incidents — user-reported or detected security events tied to the tool.
Data classification exposure — count of high/medium classified documents accessible or stored by the tool.
Third-party access — number of external identities and OAuth scopes granted.
Vulnerability or compliance gaps — missing SSO, conditional access, or DLP integration.

Architecture: how SharePoint lists + Power BI fit together

Use SharePoint lists as the canonical product inventory and staging area. Enrich that with telemetry and cost feeds, then model and visualize in Power BI. High-level flow:

Inventory & metadata: Product owners populate a SharePoint list (SaaS Inventory) with contract details, owners, renewal dates, licensing model, and business justification.
Telemetry capture: Pull usage and audit data from Microsoft Graph, vendor APIs, and M365 usage reports into another SharePoint list or into a Power BI dataflow.
Cost ingestion: Pull billing data from Azure Consumption API, vendor billing CSVs, or FinOps exports into SharePoint or dataflows.
Security enrichment: Ingest incidents, DLP logs, and external exposure findings (Microsoft Defender, Sentinel, vendor scanners) and map to product items; consider legal and privacy implications described in legal & privacy guides.
Power BI modeling: Combine lists/dataflows to compute KPIs and create retirement candidate scoring, then share dashboards with decision owners.

Practical SharePoint list schemas (templates)

Create a few focused lists. Use content types and lookup columns for consistency.

SaaS Inventory (core)

Title (ProductName)
Vendor
Owner (Person field)
Business Unit (Choice)
Primary Use Case
License Model (Seats / Per-user / Per-month)
MonthlyCost (Currency)
RenewalDate (Date)
LifecycleStatus (Choice: Active, Under Review, Retire, Retained)
Notes / Business Justification (Multi-line)

UsageSnapshots (time-series)

Product (Lookup to SaaS Inventory)
SnapshotDate (Date)
MAU (Number)
Sessions (Number)
FeatureAdoption (Percentage)
OverlappingTools (Text or JSON list)

SecurityIncidents

Product (Lookup)
IncidentDate
Severity (Choice)
Description (Multi-line)
Remediated (Yes/No)

Automating ingestion: examples and snippets

Use the Microsoft Graph, vendor APIs, PnP.PowerShell, and Power Automate. Below are practical snippets to get you started.

1) Pull basic MAU from Microsoft Graph usage reports (PowerShell)

This example uses Graph PowerShell SDK to fetch Teams usage reports and write to SharePoint via PnP.PowerShell.

# Authenticate (assumes modules installed and credentials handled)
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "Reports.Read.All","Sites.ReadWrite.All"
Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/SaaSOps" -Interactive

# Fetch Teams user activity for last 30 days
$report = Get-MgReportOffice365ActiveUserDetail -Period D30
# Parse CSV body
$data = $report.Content | ConvertFrom-Csv

foreach ($row in $data) {
  $product = "Microsoft Teams"
  $mau = [int]$row."IsDeleted"
  # Write into UsageSnapshots list (simplified example)
  Add-PnPListItem -List "UsageSnapshots" -Values @{
    "Title" = "$product - $($row."UserPrincipalName")"
    "SnapshotDate" = Get-Date
    "MAU" = 1
  }
}

Notes: adapt parsing for vendor APIs; most SaaS vendors provide usage exports or APIs. For large data volumes use Power BI dataflows or Azure Storage / Data Lake as landing zones.

2) Sync billing CSV into SharePoint list (Power Automate)

Create a scheduled Power Automate flow that triggers on new files in an inbox or Blob storage, parses CSV rows and writes to a CostAllocations list. Use the Office Scripts or Azure Function if the CSV is complex.

3) Map security events (example Graph audit query)

# Example Graph query for sign-in audit (REST)
GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/auditLogs/signIns?$filter=createdDateTime ge 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z
Authorization: Bearer {token}

Use these logs to flag unusual third-party OAuth grants or external logins tied to product accounts. For edge AI telemetry and observability patterns see observability for edge AI and the broader observability patterns conversation.

Power BI modeling: measures and scoring

After you consolidate data into datasets or dataflows, build a lightweight decision model. Below are practical DAX measures and an example retirement scoring formula.

Key DAX measures

MAU = DISTINCTCOUNT(UsageSnapshots[UserId])
Sessions = SUM(UsageSnapshots[Sessions])
Cost = SUM(SaaSInventory[MonthlyCost])
CostPerActiveUser = DIVIDE([Cost], [MAU], 0)
AvgSessionsPerUser = DIVIDE([Sessions], [MAU], 0)

Compute a composite RetirementScore

Score components: low usage, high cost per user, security incidents, overlap. Normalize each component 0-1 and weight.

# Pseudocode DAX (concept)
NormalizedUsage = 1 - ( [MAU] / MAXX(ALL(SaaSInventory), [MAU]) )
NormalizedCostPerUser = ([CostPerActiveUser] - MIN([CostPerActiveUser])) / (MAX([CostPerActiveUser]) - MIN([CostPerActiveUser]))
NormalizedSecurity = MIN(1, [SecurityIncidents] / 5) # cap at 5 incidents
OverlapScore = SaaSInventory[OverlapIndex] / 100

RetirementScore = 
  0.4 * NormalizedUsage +
  0.3 * NormalizedCostPerUser +
  0.2 * NormalizedSecurity +
  0.1 * OverlapScore

Higher RetirementScore means stronger candidate for retirement. Tune weights with stakeholders. If you’re using on-device or edge telemetry in the scoring pipeline, consider cache policy design for on-device AI retrieval to stabilize inputs.

Dashboard design: show decisions, not just charts

Design dashboards for action. Your executive summary should appear at the top (inverted pyramid):

Executive card: total subscriptions, monthly spend, candidate retirements (score > 0.7), projected savings next 12 months.
Decision grid: each tool with MAU, CPA, incidents, overlap, lifecycle status, and a one-line recommendation.
Drill-through pages: usage trends, user adoption heatmaps, contract & renewal timeline, integration dependencies (APIs/webhooks), and migration complexity estimate.
What-if panel: toggle retirement choices to see combined savings and risk exposure (Power BI what-if parameters).

Operationalize retirement: workflows and governance

Analytics are only useful if they trigger consistent actions. Use these patterns to operationalize:

Create a “Retire Candidate” lifecycle in your SaaS Inventory list. Use Power Automate to route approvals and create remediation tasks in Planner or Azure DevOps for migration/decommission steps.
Run impact analysis: use dependency maps (API, SSO, data exports) to estimate migration complexity. Review legal and caching considerations in legal & privacy guidance and add a MigrationEffort score to the list.
Hold regular FinOps + Security + Product Owner reviews: present dashboard, validate candidate list, and schedule decommission windows aligned with renewals.
Automate seat reclamation: for tools integrated with Azure AD groups, disable unused accounts or reclaim licenses based on inactivity rules. For heavy transformation tasks, prefer serverless or function-based approaches discussed in serverless vs containers.

Data governance, accuracy, and biases

Be explicit about measurement limitations.

MAU undercounts tool use if users access via shared service accounts or external vendor portals — supplement telemetry with surveys.
Cost per user can be misleading for strategic platforms with few users but high business impact; include a BusinessCritical flag in the inventory.
Security incident counts capture only detected events; add results from penetration tests and third-party audit reports.
Keep an audit trail: SharePoint list version history provides context for decisions and supports compliance. For scaling metadata and observability of your telemetry pipeline, see operational playbooks for micro-edge & observability.

2026 trends to incorporate

When designing your toolkit, account for these near-term developments:

AI-driven shadow IT detection: vendor tools and Microsoft Graph intelligence increasingly flag unknown SaaS usage. Integrate these feeds to find hidden subscriptions.
FinOps for SaaS: teams are demanding per-feature billing and dynamic license allocation — instruments should capture feature-level usage when possible.
Stronger security posture standards: expect auditors to require proof of DLP, SSO, and conditional access for any retained tool.
Composability pressures: with more low-code apps, measure integration complexity and data egress risk as first-class factors.

Real-world checklist: run your first 90-day consolidation pilot

Week 0: Build the SaaS Inventory SharePoint list and invite product owners to onboard items using a short form (use conditional fields for details).
Week 1–2: Wire telemetry — Graph reports + vendor APIs into UsageSnapshots (start with top 20 spend items).
Week 3–4: Import billing data, normalize currency, and compute CostPerActiveUser in Power BI.
Week 5–6: Add security inputs (Defender, Sentinel, DLP exports), compute SecurityIncidents and Exposure metrics.
Week 7–8: Build Power BI executive summary and RetirementScore. Pilot with one business unit.
Week 9–12: Validate candidates with product owners, run small retirements (non-critical tools), reclaim licenses, and measure realized savings.

Example: a retirement decision walk-through

Here’s a condensed real-world scenario to illustrate the flow:

Inventory lists show Tool A: 1,200 monthly seats, MAU = 120, MonthlyCost = $12,000 → CPA = $100. Overlap with Tool B (similar features) scored 0.8.
SecurityIncidents = 3 in 6 months; DLP alerts show critical documents stored without classification.
RetirementScore = 0.82 → candidate for retirement. Product owner confirms feature overlap and low business criticality.
Decision: schedule decommission at next renewal, migrate 120 active users to Tool B, run communications & training, and save an annualized $120k (minus migration effort cost).
Outcome: 30 days after decommission, Power BI shows reclaimed licenses and realized savings; security incidents tied to Tool A drop to zero.

Advanced topics: scalability and enterprise patterns

As adoption grows consider:

Move high-volume telemetry to Azure Data Lake and Power BI dataflows; keep SharePoint as the canonical metadata store for governance.
Use composite models (DirectQuery + Import) in Power BI for near-real-time cost and incident views while keeping historical snapshots imported for trend analysis.
Implement role-level security (RLS) in Power BI so procurement, security, and BU leaders see appropriate views. See analytics playbook for guidance on data-informed stakeholders.
Use Azure Logic Apps or Functions for complex vendor billing normalization or heavy transformation tasks; read more about serverless tradeoffs in serverless vs containers.

Key takeaways: what to do next (action items)

Create the minimal SaaS Inventory SharePoint list this week and onboard 10 high-cost/critical tools.
Schedule a 6–8 week telemetry + cost ingestion sprint to feed Power BI.
Define retirement thresholds (e.g., RetirementScore > 0.7 and renewal in next 90 days) and automate approval workflows.
Run a pilot retirement and measure realized savings and risk reduction; iterate weights and KPIs based on outcomes.

Final thoughts

In 2026, tool consolidation is both a cost and security imperative. Combining SharePoint lists with Power BI offers a pragmatic, auditable, and collaborative path to make data-driven retirement decisions. It balances low-friction operational capture with enterprise analytics power — enabling teams to reduce SaaS sprawl without guesswork.

Tip: start small, measure outcomes, then scale. A handful of validated retirements (and reclaimed license spend) earns the trust and budget to expand the program.

Call to action

Ready to pilot a KPI-driven consolidation program? Export the SaaS Inventory template, or ask for a custom Power BI starter pack that includes the RetirementScore model and Power Automate templates. Contact your internal FinOps or Microsoft 365 team and get a 90-day pilot on the calendar — small wins compound into big savings.

sharepoint

Contributor

Senior editor and content strategist. Writing about technology, design, and the future of digital media. Follow along for deep dives into the industry's moving parts.