I recently configured Power BI integration for a Dynamics 365 for Operations customer. And while the following article on Configuring Power BI  Integration & Registering AX as a Web App in the Azure Portal was instrumental in enabling the integration between Power BI and Dynamics 365 for Operations (D365), I wanted to include additional information and screenshots to round out the implementation. This blog is the supplement to the link above to help you enable Power BI integration in your D365 workspaces.

Getting Started with Power BI and Dynamics 365

To configure Power BI integration with Dynamics 365 for Operations, the following criteria must be met:

1. You must have Azure Active Directory (AAD) administrator privileges
2. You must be assigned to the System Administrator role in Dynamics 365 for Operations
3. You must have had at least one user sign in to PowerBI.com before
4. You must be using the same tenant for both your deployment and the user login

Example: If Dynamics 365 was deployed under the contoso.com tenant, the user login for both Dynamics 365 and Power BI should be in the format UserName@contoso.com.

Power BI Integration Steps:

1. Go to https://dev.powerbi.com/apps

2. Sign in with your AAD Admin account and complete Step 1 by clicking Sign in with your existing account.

3. Assume this is my Dynamics 365 Production URL: https://Prod-D365ProdAOS.cloudax.dynamics.com

I would complete Step 2 as follows:

4. Grant access to the Power BI API's in Step 3.

5. Click Register App to retrieve the client ID and client secret which we will paste into Dynamics 365.

NOTE: Be sure to copy the client secret and keep it safe until we are done. Once the screen is gone, the key is gone.

6. If you want to remove this registration or review it you can do so by:

a. Login to https://portal.azure.com with your AAD Admin account
b. Click More services
c. Search for App Registration and click on it

d. Select your App Name for additional details:

To delete the app registration, I've found that in the Beta portal you need to mark Multi-tenanted as NO before the Delete option becomes available. This is found in the Properties pane after selecting the app from the App registrations pane.

If the option is not there, click Manifest and change "availableToOtherTenants": true to "availableToOtherTenants": false.

Configure Dynamics 365 for Operations Integration

1. Launch Dynamics 365 and navigate to System Administration and click Power BI

2. Click Edit and enter the following information, be sure to click the slider next to Enabled:

For the fields above, enter the following pieces of information:

3. Click Save, navigate to Workspaces, Reservation Management, scroll to the right and you should see the following. Click Get started to run through the authorization process.

4. Click, Click here to provide authorization to Power BI to begin the authorization process

5. Click Accept to grant the required permissions for the integration

6. You should hopefully then see this message:

7. To validate the integration, navigate back to Reservation Management under Workspaces

Again, click on Get started

Hopefully, you’ll then see the Open tile catalog window. In my example below you can see the various dashboards, I have sitting in PowerBI.com.

I check the tiles I’m interested in and they get added to the workspace

 

Looking for more training on Microsoft Power BI?

If you've got your implementation set up and are looking for more training on how can realize the benefits within your company, check out our personalized Power BI Workshops.

Joshua Lee is the Business Intelligence Lead at Stoneridge Software. Josh has had many years of experience in the software industry as a technical consultant. A six-year veteran of Microsoft, Josh spent more than three years as a SQL Technical Lead/Support Engineer and another three years as a Partner Technical Consultant and Premier Field Engineer. He has assisted Stoneridge customers with his vast experience in SQL Server installation, query/index optimization, automation, training and Power BI Workshops.

Stoneridge Software is a Fargo, ND and Minneapolis, MN area Dynamics 365, Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM partner.  If you're interested in Dynamics 365 and Power BI integration, contact Stoneridge Software: 612-354-4966 or solutions@stoneridgesoftware.com.