Embed Power BI in Dynamics 365 CE Dashboard with Environment Variables

Introduction

In today’s data-driven world, integrating powerful analytics tools like Power BI with your Dynamics 365 CE can significantly enhance decision-making processes. Embedding Power BI reports directly into Dynamics 365 CE as system dashboards provide seamless access to actionable insights without leaving the CE interface. This article will guide you through embedding a Power BI report as a system dashboard in Dynamics 365 CE using environment variables, ensuring an efficient and streamlined integration.

Details

Create and Publish the Power BI Report

1. Create the Report: Design your report in Power BI Desktop using the necessary data sources and visualizations.
2. Publish the Report: Publish the report to your Power BI workspace.

Using Power BI report as a System Dashboard

To display the Power BI report as a System Dashboard, we need to use a new editor, as we can do this from the classical interface, so navigate to https://make.powerapps.com/, select your environment, and open your solution from the Solution option under left navigation.

Navigate to Dashboard and follow the below steps.

Once we have selected this option, it will open a new dialog. We need to select the Power BI report option, as we have developed a Power BI report only. We also want to utilize the environment variable, so select the Use environment variable option.

Under the Power BI environment variable, if we already have an environment variable, we can use that. Otherwise, we can create a new environment variable, and it will open another dialog to configure the environment variable like below.

In the above dialog, you can see the datatype will be automatically set as JSON, and under workspace, we need to select the workspace where we published our Power BI report. Once the correct workspace is selected, we will be able to see the report under the Default report value. Click on Save now to save our changes.

When we embed a Power BI report as a system dashboard, we can restrict the visibility of the report using security roles just like we can do with CRM system dashboards. Once our dashboard is set, if you check the environment variable that we created in the above step, its value will be displayed as below.

{
  "group": {
    "id": "bc4c9d55-efed-48db-9b94-91165852c735",
    "name": "DEMO"  
  },
  "component": {
    "id": "b64d42fe-5bfd-4fd9-9271-6c47d7a96e5e",
    "name": "Demo Power BI",
    "type": "Report",
    "embedUrl": "https://app.powerbi.com/reportEmbed"
  }
}

When we import our solution to another environment from the new interface, it will prompt us to enter a value of our environment variable, so we need to provide a value like the one below.

{
“group”: {
“id”: “<Workspace GUID>”,
“name”: “<Workspace Name>”
},
“component”: {
“id”: “<Report GUID>“,
“name”: “<Report Name>,
“type”: “Report”,
“embedUrl”: “https://app.powerbi.com/reportEmbed”
}
}

Summary

Embedding Power BI reports as system dashboards in Dynamics 365 CE using environment variables provides a robust solution for integrating advanced analytics within your CRM system. This integration not only enhances data accessibility but also empowers users to make data-driven decisions seamlessly. Follow the steps outlined in this guide to streamline your business processes and leverage the full potential of Power BI within Dynamics 365 CE.