What a BI Health Check Finds: 2026 Checklist

A BI health check finds the problems quietly eroding trust in your reporting before they cause a bad decision. In practice it surfaces five recurring issues: numbers nobody quite trusts because of data quality gaps; dashboards that are slow or built on weak data models; governance and security that has drifted; refreshes that fail silently; and licensing or capacity that is costing more than it should. The value is not just the list, it is the prioritisation: a good health check tells you which fixes deliver the most for the least effort. This is the 2026 checklist of what we look for and the issues we most commonly find.

1. Data quality and trust

The most damaging problem in any BI estate is numbers people no longer believe. Health checks routinely find duplicate records, inconsistent definitions of the same metric (three different versions of "revenue"), stale data presented as current, and spreadsheets quietly overriding governed figures. We check whether key metrics reconcile to source, whether definitions are documented and agreed, and whether anyone can explain a number when challenged. When the business argues about whose figure is right, that is the symptom this finds.

2. Data model and performance

Slow dashboards are usually a modelling problem, not a hardware problem. Common findings include flat, wide tables instead of a clean star schema, DAX measures that recalculate expensive logic on every visual, missing aggregations, and direct queries hammering production systems. We assess model design, relationship cardinality, measure efficiency and refresh duration. Fixing the model often makes reports several times faster at no extra licensing cost, which is why this is one of the highest-return areas a check identifies.

3. Governance and security

As BI estates grow organically, control slips. Typical findings:

• Reports shared too widely, or via insecure routes such as publish to web on confidential data.
• Row-level security missing or misconfigured, so people see data they should not.
• No clear ownership of datasets, so nobody maintains them.
• Workspaces and access that have sprawled with no naming or lifecycle discipline.

We map who can see what, check RLS, and look for a sensible workspace and deployment structure. Security gaps are the findings clients act on fastest, because the risk is concrete.

4. Reliability and refresh

Reporting people cannot rely on is reporting they stop using. Health checks find failed or fragile scheduled refreshes, gateways that are single points of failure, refresh windows that overrun, and no alerting when something breaks. We review refresh history, gateway setup and failure handling, and recommend a more resilient schedule. The goal is dashboards that are simply correct every morning without anyone babysitting them.

5. Cost, licensing and capacity

Money is often wasted quietly. Common findings include capacity sized far larger than usage requires, Premium Per User licences where Power BI Pro would do, always-on embedded or Fabric capacity that could be paused, and over-frequent refreshes burning compute. We compare your licensing and capacity to actual usage and recommend right-sizing. As of 2026, confirm current Microsoft pricing, but the pattern is consistent: most estates can cut cost without losing capability.

What you receive

The deliverable is a prioritised report: what is working, what needs attention, the business impact of each issue, and a recommended order of fixes. Often the evidence supports targeted model and governance improvements rather than a rebuild.

How the offer works

Turing BI runs this review as the Trusted Numbers Review, a fixed-scope engagement over roughly two weeks at a published fee (£2,000–£4,000 as of 2026, confirm current pricing). The fee is credited against any follow-on build, so the assessment effectively pays for itself if you proceed. We are platform-aware across both Microsoft and Zoho, so the review fits your stack rather than pushing one vendor. If a rebuild or migration is warranted, see our work on Power BI consulting and Excel to Power BI migration.

Who should get one

If your dashboards are slow, your numbers are argued over, your refreshes break, or your BI bill has crept up without explanation, a health check pays for itself in clarity. It is the sensible first step before any larger investment, because it tells you exactly where the value and the risk sit.

Ready to find out what is really going on in your reporting? Book a Trusted Numbers Review. It is a fixed, published fee, credited against any follow-on build, and gives you a clear, UK-led assessment of your BI estate, no rebuild assumed.