Power BI is a powerful visualization tool that can be used to create compelling visualizations and dashboards. With the increased popularity of Office 365, many organizations are looking to Power BI as their business intelligence tool of choice. It provides a tremendous amount of value given its functionality and price point. Power BI allows you to connect to numerous back end databases, 3rd party applications, excel and many other data sources. Once a visualization is created the typical next step is to determine the most effective way to present the data. For organizations using SharePoint as a mission critical application that they use daily, leveraging SharePoint to present the visualizations makes sense.
Within SharePoint there are two main methods by which you can make the visualization available. If you are using modern site pages in Power BI, within the Power BI app there is an option embed in SharePoint online. This provides you with a link you can use in SharePoint. If you then go to your SharePoint online modern site page, you can add the Power BI web part to it. This will prompt you to enter the Power BI link that you previously obtained via the Power BI app. Once you publish the page your Power BI visualization will be rendered on the SharePoint page.
The other method to render the visualization within SharePoint is within the Power BI app, instead of selecting embed in SharePoint online you would select Publish to web. You would use this if you were using classic site pages. Upon selecting publish to web you are provided with a code snippet that you need to insert into SharePoint. Within SharePoint you can add a script editor web part and add the code snippet. Once added the visualization will render.
There is a good deal of confusing information regarding the refreshing of Power BI data. When you use the Power BI desktop tool to create a visualization the data will not refresh in real time. Once you publish the visualization to the app, if you go to the dataset tab you will have an option to schedule a refresh. The shortest interval is daily. If you create a visualization using the Power BI app, the data will refresh, typically within an hour, often much quicker. The disadvantage is there is less functionality available in the Power BI online app than in the desktop tool.
If you have interest in further discussing Power Bi and SharePoint please contact us.