Using Power Apps Power BI and Power Automate together can unleash huge benefits and enhance your solutions. Creating an end-user-centric dashboard and power app creates a simplified user experience. We will understand who will be visiting the reporting solution, the value they will receive from it, and take action through the actions below.
Use Cases for Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate Integration
There are countless opportunities to unify these tools and use them together. Here are a few common use cases that can have huge benefits.
Editing source data directly
One of the biggest advantages of using Power apps, Power BI and Power Automate together is the ability write back data to the source system. Power BI is natively a read-only tool, allowing users to see their data. Power Apps and Power Automate provide a great way to be able to modify this data directly. A good example is sales staff looking at forecasts. They may want to make some small adjustments. For example, they know a customer has gone out of business. With the embedded solutions, they can update and write back to the source system from within the Power BI Report.
Adding additional information
Like editing the data directly, the solutions also allow for additional data to be stored. This may include adding comments to another database. A solution like this would let others see the comments when they view the reports. Or we could send an email regarding some information you have filtered in the reports.
Take Action on data
As well as adding and storing information, several actions can be taken through Power apps, Power BI and Power Automate integration. Maybe in a sales dashboard, we want to alert someone about a trend. Alternatively, we could kick off a campaign by reacting to information in a marketing dashboard. There are huge amounts of actions that can be taken in Power Automate. Power Apps provides a great shell to control and kick off these actions. You can even call Power Automate to keep track of Power Query errors.
See our Power BI data elsewhere
It is not limited to just surfacing Power Apps in the Power BI report. We can also view our Power BI data in our Power Apps. Thus, allowing business users to access the information when using the apps. There is also the possibility to set off Power Automate actions based on data-driven alerts.
Create a Unified Power Apps, Power BI Experience
An example of a Power App embedded in a Power BI Report
Here is a quick tip before you start to plan how to build your Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate integration. Write down two things and keep this at the center of every action taken.
Understand who your audience is by writing down the end-user. Write organizational titles and personalities (technical ability). Writing these down and seeing these as a reminder throughout the build will help guide visuals, verbiage, and process flow.
Now that we understand the audience, write down the goal of surfacing the data and how it affects the audience.
Suppose the tool doesn’t have a defined audience and purpose. It’s like having a destination but no map, a vehicle, and an idea but no vision to truly connect the dots. Ensure that these are clearly stated, placed somewhere visible even on the Power App or within the dashboard while testing to keep these critical pieces of information at the forefront while combining the end-user experience from two separate tools to one unified solution.
Interact with your data in real-time
The questions above drive cohesiveness and solution unification, but how are we informing the audience, and for what purpose? The purpose of integrating a Power Apps, Power BI report is to enable real-time Action. In fact, it’s at the most critical point while the consumer is digesting the information.
Build a power app to drive input through Power BI’s self-service capabilities. Power BI users visit reports to visualize meaningful data, discover trends, and ultimately make decisions. Allow Power Apps to complement the users by enabling the end-user to take Action while the end-user has data in front of them. Combing Power BI, Power Apps and Power Automate reduces context switching. It provides a simple way for the end-user to make meaningful areas of interest actionable. Keep these tools as close as you can to maximize decision-making capabilities and employee productivity.
Gain Feedback
Build a power app to drive actionable outcomes through process automation. Viewing insights is essential. However, taking Action on these insights is equally as important. Embedding a Power App on the form and surfacing the data through Power Apps will bring that information to the end-user in a way that Power BI can’t, providing data modifying capabilities. Whether it’s one column or a large number of columns be edited, Power Apps can filter based on what you have selected. It brings in the form so that it only pulls in the relevant information. Keep this in mind while Sales team members are looking at their forecast and are 5 minutes before their weekly quota call and making some changes. They modify their data to see it very easy to use and don’t require them to context switch, losing their train of thought.
Learn How
Watch the video below to learn how to use Power Apps, Power BI and Power Automate together!
This was originally recorded from the Milwaukee Brew City Power Platform User Group on August 24th, 2020.
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Power BI Version Control is a free, fully-packaged solution that lets users apply version control, local editing, and manage PBIX or PBIT files. The solution runs entirely on Power Apps (Power Platform) and SharePoint. Power BI Version Control can give business users or smaller organizations the ability to easily implement and utilize version control for their Power BI projects.
Note: updating the app version will require you to re-import the SharePoint connection and folders.
In most version control systems, branching is a method to make edits to code in a safe and reliable way. Typically, users “branch”, or copy, the code to their local machine to make edits. They can then “merge” the code back to the master code, adding comments of what has changed and who changed it. Each change is saved as a different version, with the ability to go back to any version. Small, frequent changes are helpful, making it easy to undo any errors. This type of version control requires that every file be saved in a plain text format, so the differences between two versions of the same file can be easily identified, cherry-picked, merged, etc.
However, unlike pure source code, Power BI reports are packaged into PBIX or PBIT files, which cannot be compared against each other in the way we just described. This makes it much harder for multiple users to work on the same set of files simultaneously. While it is possible to use Azure DevOps, GitHub, etc. as a version control solution for Power BI reports, it’s difficult to setup and use (especially for non-technical business users). The Power BI Version Control solution bridges that gap by harnessing SharePoint’s built-in file versioning and the user-friendly UI/UX of Power Apps.
Why use Power BI Version Control?
Single shared location for reports (no emailing files!)
Keeping all of your Power BI report files in SharePoint means that you’ll always know where to find them, and that they’ll always be the latest versions of those files.
Keep all versions of the report (no adding numbers to file names!)
We often want to keep files from the past in case we need to roll back changes. Instead of adding version numbers or initials to the file names (like Sales_Report_v2.5_Final(1)(1).pbix), SharePoint will keep all versions of your report files automatically. Additionally, by using this Power BI version control method, it is possible to roll back to any of these versions whenever needed.
Ability to check out files exclusively, like a library – only one person can make changes at a time
When working in teams, you may have multiple people working on a project (see this post on Power BI team members). If you have more than one person who may edit a file, we want to make sure they are not trying to do it at the same time. Power BI Version Control ensures that only one person can check out any given file at once. As a result, nobody else can make edits to a file that you are working on. No more conflicts or working on outdated versions of files!
Ability to check-in files – add comments describing changes made since the last check-in
After making edits, we want to be able to keep comments about what was changed. With each version we are able to add a description of what has changed since the last version.
Work locally – make all changes on copies, so we do not edit our files directly
Another important benefit of Power BI Version Control is that we always work on copies of our reports. We can save and experiment as we work on the files, knowing that we will not accidentally damage a live report. We do all work locally on our machine and separate to our production or live reports. If needed, we can discard all changes and start again.
How to use Power BI Version Control
Power BI Version Control – Installation Instructions (YouTube)
Installing the App
Download the Power BI Version Control app solution file (from the link near the top of this page)
In the list of Solutions, find Power BI Version Control
Click the ellipsis and select edit
The app will now open in edit mode
Add the SharePoint folder by following the following steps:
Open the data sources tab
Select Add data
Type “SharePoint” in the search bar
Select SharePoint (note: be careful not to select “SharePoint Sites”)
Choose the SharePoint connection you selected earlier
In the pane that opens, enter the URL of the SharePoint site. This should be in the format: https://DOMAIN.sharepoint.com/sites/SITENAME
Click Connect
Choose the correct Document Library and click Connect
Select the tree view and navigate to the Settings Screen
Fix any red X marks on the page by updating the settings to match your folder structure (as described in the next section). If you used the default folder and document library names you should not need to update any settings
Setting the connections
There are four numbered blue boxes that may require updating. If you see any red X marks next to any of the following boxes, click on that box and update the required property.
1.
Click this box and make sure Items is selected. Update the text to match the document library name (this is also the name of the data source you imported earlier). Use the IntelliSense (auto-complete) to ensure the correct value is selected. The text should turn green when correct, and the red X should disappear.
2.
Click this box and make sure OnSelect is selected. The formula should read Refresh(‘[Your Document Library]’). Update the text to match the document library name (this is also the name of the data source you imported earlier). Use the IntelliSense so ensure the correct value is selected. The text should turn green when correct, and the red X should disappear.
3.
Click this blue box (not the label) and make sure Text is selected. Update this to the checked out folder name, surrounded by double quotation marks.
Note: if you add a forward slash to the end of the folder name, this will add all checked out folders to the same folder. Otherwise, a sub-folder will be created for each user based on their user ID.
4.
Click this blue box (not the label) and make sure Text is selected. Update this to the published reports folder name, surrounded by double quotation marks (e.g. “Published Reports”).
Check that there are no red X marks. A red error message will also show at the bottom of the screen if there were any errors in setup. Resolve all errors before publishing.
Click File then Save
After the app has saved, click Publish to ensure all changes are deployed
Using the App
Power BI Version Control – User Instructions (YouTube)
We recommend embedding the Power BI Version Control app in a Teams channel. Additionally, the SharePoint site can be added to the Files section in Teams. This will allow all appropriate members to access the Power BI Version Control app and report files in one place.
Check Out
Open the Power BI Version Control app
Click the Check Reports Out button on the Home Screen
The Check Out Screen will list all PBIX and PBIT files in the Published Reports folder. Select the reports you wish to modify in the Check Out Reports column. You will only be able to check out reports that are not already checked out
Click Check Out Reports button
Wait a few moments for the reports to process. It may take longer if using large files
Editing the files
Navigate to the OneDrive folder on your local machine. The selected reports will appear in the synced folder Checked Out Reports (or sub-folder)
You can now open and edit these files. If using live connections, consider using the Hot Swap Connections Tool
If you want to save copies, you can do so in a sub-folder or elsewhere on your local machine. Avoid this when possible. We recommended to make small and frequent updates / check-ins
When ready, make sure only the files that are ready for check-in are saved in Checked Out Reports (or sub-folder). Make sure the names of files have not been altered
If you manually publish reports, publish immediately before closing and checking in
Check In
Once edits are done, Check In the reports from the Checked Out Reports folder to the Published Reports folder. Alternatively, you may wish to discard your work. As a result, this will release the file and ignore any changes you have made. Next, it will delete the file from the Checked Out Reports folder.
Commit changes:
Open the Power BI Version Control app
Click the Check Reports Out button on the Home Screen
This will list all PBIX and PBIT files in the Checked Out Reports folder. Select the reports you wish to Check In in the Check Out Reports column. You will only be able to check in reports that are checked out to you
Make sure to add comments. Include details on changes you made. If using Azure DevOps, Planner, or some other project management tool, include the relevant ticket/task number(s) in your comments whenever possible
Click the Check in reports button
Discard changes:
Navigate to the Check In page by the button on the main page
This will list all PBIX and PBIT files in the Checked Out Reports folder. Next, select the reports with changes that you wish to discard in the Discard Report column. You will only be able to discard reports that are checked out to you
Confirm Discard
Helpful Tips
Also included in the app is a flow called Initial Step: Create Power BI Reports Library with Folders.
Open the flow and select Run
Paste in your SharePoint site where you wish to create the folders, site e.g. https://powerbitips.sharepoint.com/sites/powerbi
Running this will automatically create a library and folders in your desired site. It will use default names, which means you will not need to configure the app in the settings page after connecting to the data source.
Sync Folders
You should sync the Checked Out Reports (or sub-folder) that was created to your local machine’s OneDrive, allowing for local edits. If using sub-folders, you must check out a file once to create the folder.
Ensure to sync only theChecked Out Reports folder (or sub-folder).
You can sync either through SharePoint or through Microsoft Teams.
From SharePoint:
Navigate to the correct SharePoint site
Select Documents and navigate to the Checked Out Reports (or sub-folder)
In the toolbar, select Sync
From Teams:
Open the Teams channel
In the toolbar, select Files and navigate to the Checked Out Reports (or sub-folder)
You can now access the files in this directory from the local machine.
Limitations and Scope
Known issues:
The app will fail if the internal SharePoint name and the Display name do not match. This happens when a SharePoint site is created, and the display name is manually changed later. We are working on a patch for this.
If you have a very large number of reports, the app may not display all of them. We are working on a patch for this.
Design:
This solution is designed to handle thin report files, and not large models. The solution will copy and publish to one single folder, and is not intended to manage environments (e.g. dev / test / prod). It should be connected to a Development environment, we recommend using Power BI Deployment Pipelines to deploy reports from Dev to Test, and from Test to Prod.
The Power BI Version Control app solution performs these main tasks:
Check out and lock editing to a single user
Copy files to a local synced folder for safe editing
Keep version history and enforce developer comments on each check-in
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