Native Power BI integration components for Business Central
- Sample reports and embedded experience – see power BI reports inside roles centre in Business Central. Has standard templates.
- Power BI Connector – Connect your data to Power BI outside of Business Central.
- Power BI Template Apps.
New Power BI start-up experience in latest version of Business Central:
- There is a new Initial Flow via a new wizard with added instructions
- Back end improvement to made reports much faster
- Added Guidance for AAD registration for on-premise
- Improved troubleshooting (Admin users only)
Updated Power BI Connector
The new connector supports v2.0 APIs from Business Central, custom API Pages and still supports webservices. It is also backwards-compatible and up to 25% faster just by switching API pages.
Power Automate and Power Apps
Previously limited to of predefined APIs, this has now been lifted. Now support custom APIs and can be accessed through Power Automate and Power Apps. Also supports ISV components.
It is also backward-compatible but you can also use the new V3 triggers in the connector.
Contoso Rental Demo
The demo was very clever, it showed the demo company, previously a Furniture Retail store that (Due to COVIOD) pivoted to a Furniture Rental company. There was a custom extension that added capabilities to the sales header, including rental start date, rental end date and actual return date. Also in the extension was additional APIs that allowed Power-Automate to pull data from Business Central (Trigger’s) which could create a new event and pick when a new record which was created using built-in access to end points. They were then able to automatically create a Calendar start for the rental from a sales order. Each Sales Order would get a different calendar entry (out/in). The data was then pushed to a PowerApp* which had a sales card and allowed Warehouse Staff to receive goods back from rental.
No mention on the licence types required for this – not sure if you could use team members or may not require Business Central license at all? Just Power apps?
New Power BI Wizard
The new wizard makes it easier to create reports (As you would expect). After the licences is checked the wizard will allow “Get Data” From Business Central as well as other data sources outside.
It connects to the Endpoints loaded in BC (Remember – the restrictions were lifted) and the Power BI panel is normal Power BI. If you can use a PIVOT you can create a report. The fun part is you can publish the report from Power BI desktop to Power BI Workspace. This report can then be displayed in a role-centre of Business Central.
Basically, you can create in Power BI – but then you can ‘slice & dice’ from within Business Central.
