In this article:
1. Introduction to Power BI
2. Get Your Businessmap Data and Create a Power BI Dataset
3. Build Your Reports
4. Publish Your Work
5. Embed Your Power BI Report Directly on Your Businessmap Dashboard
1. Introduction to Power BI
Power BI is one of the most popular and powerful ways to work with complex business data.
With Power BI, you can create highly interactive reports, clickable visualizations, and dashboards from your data sets and share them with your audience.
To get started, download the free Microsoft Power BI Desktop application. Note that Power BI releases a new version almost every month.
Power BI is made up of two distinct parts:
- The first one is Power BI Desktop, which is the tool that allows you to build Power BI reports.
- The second part is called Power BI Service, which is the web-based platform that allows you to publish and share your reports with other members of your organization.
You can use Power BI Desktop without registering for the PowerBI.com online account. If you want to publish and share your reports, you must log in to your online account. Sign up for free here.
Take advantage of the powerful, two-way Businessmap integration with Microsoft Power BI that allows you to:
- Bring your Businessmap data to life with interactive dashboards and engaging reports that you can collaborate, publish, and share.
- Embed the Power BI reports directly on your dashboard.
2. Get Your Businessmap Data and Create a Power BI Dataset
Step 1: Use the Advanced Search functionality in Businessmap to get data and export custom reports. You can use filters to narrow down your data as well as to configure it to hide/show certain properties and thus focus on a specific portion of data.
Note: When configuring your results, if you select the Title, Description, Last Comment, or a Multi-line Custom Field, there is a character limitation. The number of characters with spaces depends on the number of results you get in your report:
- If you get between 1 and 10 results (cards), the system displays 100000 characters.
- if you get between 11 and 30 results (cards), the system displays up to 30000 characters.
- between 31 and 100 cards - up to 10000 characters.
- between 101 and 300 - up to 3000 characters.
- between 301 and 1000 - up to 1000 characters.
- between 1001 and 3000 - up to 300 characters.
- above 3000 - up to 100 characters.
Important: When exporting data from multiple workflows or boards via the Advanced search, ensure that all column names are unique. Power BI does not distinguish between columns with identical names, which may result in data loss.
Step 2. Once you generate your report, proceed further and Save it. Give it a name, checkmark the Power BI query, and select "Save Filter."
Step 3. You will see the generated script from your search results. Copy the script to use it in the advanced query editor in Power BI.
Step 4: Go to your Power BI Desktop and select Get Data. Scroll through the list and select Blank Query.
Step 5: Open the Advanced query editor where you can paste the script.
When you paste the script into the Advanced Editor, click Done.
Note: If the software requests further authentication, please click on Edit Credentials and Connect.
The Power Query Editor launches with a representative view of the table. You will get the same data from your Businessmap search to create your dataset. You can further configure and combine your data.
3. Build Your Reports
In the Power BI Desktop Report view, you can build numerous visualizations and reports.
The Report view has six main areas:
(1)The reports and visualizations ribbon at the top lets you configure your data.
(2) The canvas area in the middle, where visualizations are created and arranged.
(3) The pages tab area at the bottom, which lets you select or add report pages.
(4) The Filters pane, where you can filter data visualizations.
(5) The Visualizations pane, where you can add, change, or customize visualizations, and apply drill-through.
(6) The Fields pane, which shows the available fields in your queries. You can drag these fields onto the canvas, the Filters pane, or the Visualizations pane to create or modify visualizations.
Example:
To create a visualization, you have to select a chart/graph. The options available in the Fields area depend on the type of data you have in your dataset. For example, let's create a report using a visualization that shows the Assignees (a.k.a. Card Owners) and the total time they have logged against the tasks in the "R&D" board.
Select the Donut/Pie chart from the Visualization pane. In the Fields pane, select Assignee, Board name, and Logged time. Power BI instantly creates the visuals in the dedicated area.
With Power BI, you can create a variety of appealing and functional reports with advanced calculations in order to bring out important metrics and insights from your data sets.
4. Publish Your Work
Now that you have a Power BI Desktop report, you can share it with other members of your organization.
First, you have to Save your report and then publish it directly from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service (you need an account to be able to do this).
Note: There are several ways to share your report.
You’ll be prompted to sign in to Power BI. When you've signed in and the publishing process is complete, the following dialog box will appear. You can select the link below Success!, which will take you to the Power BI service, where you can see the report that you published.
Your report opens in your Power BI site under My workspace.
You can make changes to your reports directly in the Power BI service. Moreover, you can pin your reports to design a functional dashboard, making the most important information stand out.
Note: Power BI Pro users can share reports, datasets, and dashboards with other users through the Share option. This will generate a link you can copy, or you can send the data over email, on Microsoft Teams, or embed it in a PowerPoint presentation. Only Power BI Pro users with the necessary permissions will have access to the data.
5. Embed Your Power BI Report Directly on Your Businessmap Dashboard
With the Power BI "Publish to web" option, you can easily embed your interactive Power BI report directly on your Dashboard.
Step 1: Select File, go to Embed report, and click on Publish to web (public).
Step 2: Create an embed code and publish a live version that will remain synchronized with the source report in Power BI. Any changes you make to the report will be reflected in the published public version.
Step 3: Copy the generated link.
Step 4: Go to the Datasets Settings to make sure your report data is up to date using the Refresh option.
You have two ways to access the Datasets menu.
Option 1: On the top-side ribbon, next to the Edit icon, click on the three dots (1). Select View dataset (2) from the dropdown menu.
Click on Refresh (3) in the upper left corner, pick Schedule refresh (4) from the dropdown, and configure your refresh frequency from the Datasets menu.
Option 2: Go to My workspace (1), find the Dataset type (2) of your report, and click on the Schedule refresh icon (3).
From the Datasets menu (4), scroll down to the Refresh section (5) and configure your refresh schedule.
Step 5: Now open your Businessmap account and go to any of your custom Dashboards where you want to visualize the BI Report. Click Add Widget and select the predefined Power BI Reports widget.
Step 6: Paste the link you copied in Step 3 in the dedicated field and Save the Widget.
When you go to your Businessmap Dashboard, you will see your BI report next to the other Widgets you have used.
Power BI comes with various out-of-the-box visualizations and integrates easily with your existing business environment. The solution allows businesses of all sizes to analyze data, share insights, and save time building multiple reports for each stakeholder.