Create PowerBI Reports Using SharePoint Online List

Power BI is a Cloud based Service, which provides data visualization options, based on the source data. Using PowerBI, we can create dashboards, based on the data. In order to create the reports. Using PowerBI, make sure that you have a PowerBI account. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for it here .You can either work with PowerBI online or download the PowerBI Desktop version here.



In this article, we will go ahead with the desktop version. Once downloaded and installed, spin up for PowerBI Desktop.



This will open up the desktop version of PowerBI.



PowerBI is flexible enough to work with multiple data sources. In this article, we will see how to create reports, using SharePoint Online list as the data source. Click ‘Get Data’ option to select the data source.



All the supported data sources from which we can create the reports will be listed down as the separate tabs. In this article, we will see how to report against SharePoint Online list. From Online Services tab, select SharePoint Online List and click ‘Connect’.



Specify the location of SharePoint online list and click OK.



It will ask for SharePoint Online authentication.



Click ‘Sign In’.



It will give us the option to sign in to Office 365 subscription. Specify Email/Phone and password.



Click Sign In.



We will be trying to connect to the list ‘Product Sales’, given below in SharePoint Online from PowerBI.



It contains the product sales details of the manufactured cars.



PowerBI has now connected to SharePoint Online and will list out all the available lists. Select the ‘Product Sales’ list.



Click OK. This will load the Product sales records into PowerBI Desktop.



We can see the list of all the columns in the fields pane.



From the table tab, delete the unwanted columns.



Now, we have to change the data type of the remaining fields.



Click Data type. By default, it is set as a text.



Change it to Whole number.



Click Yes to complete the change in the data type.



Do this for all the fields.



Now, go back to the report tab.



Here, we can use the different visualization options varying from pie chart to bar graph to the other visualization options.



Let’s select Bar graph option.



Select check box against all the fields.



They will be automatically added to the value field in the visualization section.



This will populate the bar graph with the values in SharePoint list field. We can apply custom styling to the reports and assign the color to the bars. We can also apply legends and apply customization to the plot area.



Finally, once the report is completed, we can publish it to online PowerBI Service.



Ensure that you have an account in PowerBI and select My Workspace.



This will start the publishing of the report to PowerBI.



Publishing has completed with a success message.



Now, let’s head over to the PowerBI site. SharePoint online report has become available in the reports section.



Summary

Thus, we saw how to create PowerBI reports, using SharePoint Online list as the data source.