How to embed Power BI visuals into Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain – Part 3: Custom Reports
The third part in our Power BI Embedded blog series will have you covered in case out of the box Power BI reports provided by Microsoft do not meet your business requirements. Please refer to Part 1 on how to get going with embedded Power BI and Part 2 on the Data Refresh rules. Power BI Embedded offers customers a choice of creating new or extending existing reports. Let’s take a look at how to embed a custom Power BI report in Dynamics 365.
The process begins with Entity store development. First, aggregate measurements and dimensions need to be created in Visual Studio. Microsoft also provides a simplified process of transitioning from previously developed Analytical Services cubes to aggregate models. Once aggregate measurements are ready, the Entity store can be deployed in the development environment, simply by building our project and synchronizing.
Now we are ready to begin Power BI Embedded development. First, reports are created in the development environment by using Power BI desktop application. Then reports are connected to the Entity store by using DirectQuery. Be sure to point it to the local Entity store. Newly created aggregate measurements can now be selected to provide data for the new report.
When development is done, the next step is to deploy the Entity store in a sandbox or production environment. This step is done by creating a deployable package for the model and then uploading the package to the Asset library in LCS. After that, the newly created aggregate measurement needs to be refreshed in the Entity store, as described in Part 2, by going to System administration > Setup > Entity store. We also need to upload the new Power BI report to the Asset library in LCS under Power BI report model asset type.
Next, we need to deploy Power BI files in Dynamics 365 by going to System administration > Setup > Deploy Power BI files. The application handles data source mapping which means that no additional steps are required to point the new report to the target database.
At this point, Power BI reports are ready to be embedded or pinned in Dynamics 365. Another option to embedded custom reports is to create new Analytical Workspaces.
Microsoft provides a large number of preconfigured and embedded Power BI reports. Developers can download these reports as PBIX files and enhance them by extending reports in Power BI Desktop application. Alternatively, business users have the ability to perform certain report modifications on their own by opening an Analytical Workspace and going to Options > Power BI > Edit Analytics.
Additional information and details can be found here:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/dev-itpro/analytics/power-bi-embedded-integration
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/dev-itpro/analytics/power-bi-integration-entity-store?toc=/dynamics365/commerce/toc.json