Connecting to Power BI App with Dataverse

[Babakhsn]

Hello everyone,

I have a Power Apps app and I am importing the data that I have in Dataverse for this app into Power BI to create a report.

I want to create a Power BI app and connect directly to the environment of my Power Apps app(Dataverse) so that the data can be read directly into my Power BI app. Could someone give me a clue?

I've seen some Power BI template apps in Power BI service and I know they use some sort of connection for this but I don't know how they're doing it.

Thanks in advance.

[Babakhsn]

Hi @Martin_D 

Thanks for the response.

This isn't exactly what I need. We have customers who are using some app we have created in Power Apps.

We want to provide reports for the data they put into our app, this means they connect their Power BI(wether service or desktop) to their environment and then they can see their data. Something like the following app:

When I click on "connect your data" I get this:

Now instead of Sharepoint, I want it to connect to the environment of our customers in Dataverse so that it can get their data and show reports based on their data.

I hope this makes it more clear.

[Martin_D]

Hi @Babakhsn ,

Your screenshot looks like you've installed the Power BI Microsoft Project Template App and now you are trying to connect to Project. The template app is a prebuilt app that doesn't allow you to connect to any other sources than the ones that the provider has included in the app. In case of the Microsoft Project Template App this is SharePoint and only SharePoint. But you can connect to any SharePoint in any tenant, including your customer's.

If you want to connect to any other source, like Dataverse, then it's not a suitable starting point to use a template app from AppSource, except if it is already built based on your type of datasource, like Dataverse, filled with data from a specific product, like Microsoft Project or Microsoft Dynamics. But if an app is built to connect with SharePoint, you cannot connect the app to Dataverse.

To build your own app that connects to Dataverse, the right starting point is Power BI Desktop. It has a built-in connector to Dataverse.

If you want to share your app through AppSource with your customers, once you've built your app, this is the publishing process for a Power BI template app on AppSource: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-template-apps-create Then customers can install your app with the ability to connect to Dataverse.

BR

Martin

[Babakhsn]

Hello @Martin_D 

Thanks for the response. Just to make everything clear for myself, I should create a report using Power BI desktop and using Dataverse data and then publish this to a workspace in Power BI service and then create a template app. Is this summary correct or am I missing something?

Thanks again.

[Martin_D · Accepted solution]

Hi @Babakhsn ,

Yes, that's basically the process:

• You create the report in Power BI Desktop.
• You create an App Template Workspace in Power BI Service.
• You publish the report from Power BI Desktop to the App Template Workspace.
• You share the Template App on App source

The important difference to what you did so far is that when creating the workspace you need to mark it as Template App workspace right from the beginning. This setting is at the bottom of the advaced workspace settings:

The full process is described in the Power BI documentation. I'd recommend to read all six pages from the Template Apps section in the documentation before you start: 

Create template apps in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

BR

Martin

[Martin_D]

Hi @Babakhsn ,

The easiest way is from Power Apps, go to the tables, and without selecting any table, select Analyze in Power BI from the top menu bar.

This will download you an pbids file as a starting point. Just double-click the file when download is done. This starts Power BI Desktop. When being asked, login with the correct organizational account with access to the dataverse tables and select the tables you want to include in your Power BI report.

Read the full story in the Power Apps documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/view-entity-data-power-bi

BR

Martin