We will learn to embed a Power BI report in the Dynamics 365 CRM. Before we start, make sure to subscribe to CRM Crate so that you can stay up to date in the field of Dynamics 365.

What are Power BI reports?

Microsoft Power BI is a collection of applications, software services & connectors that work & collaborate to transform the unrelated sources of data into a visually representative, interactive & coherent insights. This unrelated data may be an Excel spreadsheet, or a collection of cloud-based and on-premises hybrid data warehouses.

Power BI consists of several elements that all work together, starting with these three basics:

• A Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop.
• An online SaaS (Software as a Service) service called the Power BI service.
• Power BI mobile apps for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

Click on the given link to learn more about Power BI – https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/

Why do we need to embed a Power BI report into the Dynamics 365?

Power BI reports can be viewed on multiple platforms including the public web domain. Consider a scenario where the business needs to display the Power BI report within the dashboards of their Dynamics 365. We can achieve this requirement with help of the below given solution.

Steps for embedding a Power BI report in the dashboards of Dynamics 365

Follow the below steps for embedding a Power BI report in your D365.

Step 1 – Design & develop your Power BI report in the Power BI desktop

Use the Power BI desktop for designing & developing your Power BI report. For demonstration purpose, I have already developed a report in Power BI desktop application as shown below.

Step 2 – Publish your report in Power BI workspace

Once your report is designed & developed, publish your report in the Power BI workspace as shown below.

Step 3 – Open the published report in Power BI service

Login into the Power BI service portal (https://app.powerbi.com/) and navigate to the workspace where the report has been published. In our case, we have published our report in the workspace named “Sales Analytics for Dynamics 365 Sales”. Here, we can view and access the previously designed report as shown below.

Step 4 – Configure the tenant setting in Power BI admin panel

As a system administrator, we need to first configure the tenant settings before embedding the report in Dynamics 365.

In the Power BI service, click on the advance settings (Three Dots Button) >> Settings >> Admin Portal as shown below.

In the Admin Portal, navigate to “Tenant Settings” >> “Publish to web” and enable the setting as shown below.

Note: – You cannot embed a Power BI report without enabling this setting.

Step 5 – Generate an embedded web URL

Now we will generate an embedded web URL of our Power BI report. In the Power BI service, again navigate to the workspace, open the previously designed Power BI report, and click on “File” >> “Embed report” >> “Publish to web (public)” as shown below.

Note: – The above embedding will display the Power BI report on a public level without any authentication. If you want to impose a tenant level authentication, then generate an embed code using an option named “Website or portal”.

Copy the generated URL as shown below. You can use this web URL for opening the Power BI report.

Step 6 – Configure an iFrame in dashboard of Dynamics 365

For demonstration purpose, we will embed the Power BI report in a Dynamics 365 dashboard. Navigate to the Dynamics 365 customization >> Dashboard and add an iFrame element within the dashboard as shown below

Now, use the above copied Power BI embedded web URL in the dashboard iFrame. Publish the dashboard once the configuration is completed.

Validate the new implementation in Dynamics 365

Navigate to Dynamics 365 dashboards and validate whether the Power BI report appears in the dashboard of Dynamics 365 as shown below.

Thus, we learned to embed a Power BI report in the Dynamics 365 CRM.

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