Tuesday, March 28, 2017

PowerBI dashboard integration in Microsoft TEAMS

Hi Folks, it's been a while! Back from a couple of very time consuming projects, I wanted to share with you a nice way to share PowerBI dashboards.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about how to embed a PowerBI dashboard in SharePoint/Project Online using a content editor webpart. That was a nice try, but if you read it until the end, you probably saw this disclaimer:

Warning: When you use Publish to web, the report or visual you publish can be viewed by anyone on the Internet. There is no authentication used when viewing these reports. Only use Publish to web with reports and data that the anyone on the Internet (unauthenticated members of the public) should be able to see. Do not use Publish to web with sensitive data, data that has financial implications, data that must remain confidential, or data that you do not have the license rights to publish.

Not good, isn't it!? Or at least pointless... Until then, you couldn't easily share a PowerBI dashboard out of PowerBI App.

Few weeks ago, Microsoft released TEAMS, a chat-based application for supporting team collaboration (see here for more details), accessible from the O365 waffle menu.

O365 Waffle menu with TEAMS
The principle is quite simple. Assuming you have created your PowerBI dashboard and configured your collaboration space in TEAMS, you can easily add in the teams section a PowerBI application.
Add a PowerBI application in TEAMS
Once done, you'll be prompted to choose among the PBI dashboards you can see.
Select PowerBI dashboard
That's done!
The good thing is that it isn't just an image of your dashboard but a frame embeding your PowerBI content. You can even play with the filter or start a discussion related to the dashboard.
Use the dashboard filter in the TEAM PowerBI tab

Start a conversation about the dashboard

Beyond this nice feature, I see advantages for organizations using teams which can create groups of users based on their reporting needs, such as portfolio managers, and share dashboards accordingly.

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