Measuring and tracking results is essential for teams to achieve their objectives. However, it’s often hard for everyone to use data to make decisions. Adding Power BI reports where people collaborate helps data driven decision making become part of your routine.
We’re excited to announce the new Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams. The new tab adds support for reports in the new workspace experiences, reports in Power BI apps, and paginated reports. In this blog, we’ll highlight the new capabilities and provide tips and tricks for how to use the tab to drive a data culture where people collaborate.
The roll out of the new Power BI tab has started and should complete by 2/28/2020.
When the tab is added to your channels and chats, it’s easier for everyone to find and track the data they need to achieve their objectives. It’s also a great way to manage change in your organization. As new people join a team, the data they need is right there and ready for them to use.
Adding a tab
In Microsoft Teams, start by going to one of your channels or group chats. Use the “+” icon to start adding the tab.
Find or search for Power BI.
In the tab settings pick any report you have in your workspaces or in apps you have installed in Power BI.
The new tab allows picking paginated reports, in addition to interactive reports.
When a report is picked, the tab name reflects the report name. The name can be changed before saving the tab. The tab appears at the top of your channel or chat.
Giving your colleagues access to the report
When adding a Power BI tab, give your colleagues permission to see the report. A link is shown in the setting page to help you do that. You’ll need the reshare permission on report to share it. If the report you chose is in an app, you may need to update the app.
We recommend using security or Office 365 group to secure reports and workspaces. That way as people change in your team, they automatically have access to the reports.
Licensing
Existing Power BI licensing applies to reports embedded in Microsoft Teams. To view reports in the Power BI tab, users can view the report if they have a Pro license or the report is in a workspace assigned to a Power BI Premium capacity (P or EM).
Encouraging a data culture using the Power BI tab
The Power BI tab is a great way to cultivate the habit of data driven decision making. Adding reports where you collaborate, helps co-worker find and use data. The tools and techniques below help you get your team to start discussing and using data more often.
At the top of the tab, you’ll find tools that are pretty awesome.
The conversation icon expands the tab conversation. This makes it easy to ask questions of your team and share insights you find. Everyone in the channel sees the discussion and can offer their thoughts. By involving coworkers in discussions about data, you foster a data culture within your team.
The globe icon opens the report directly in Power BI. This allows you to do more with your data like export to PowerPoint or PDF, print, analyze in Excel, and much more.
The full screen button does what you’d think, it hides the channels list giving you more room to work with your reports. The refresh button re-loads the tab. It doesn’t refresh the data in your report, you need to go to Power BI to do that.
Under the … menu you’ll find a handy feature that helps you copy a deep link to the tab you created. Send it to your colleagues in other channels, chats, or even in e-mail so they know you added a tab and can find it quickly.
Many customers ask how they can foster a data culture. Here are a few tips and tricks that can jump start your organization to use data to make decisions more often:
- Add a Power BI tab to channels in your teams and share the link to the tab
- Ask questions about the data in Teams conversations and include a link to the Power BI tab
- Put a link to the Power BI tab in recurring meetings and make reviewing data an agenda item
- Add a Power BI tab to chats with individuals or groups, especially if the data show shared goals you can track easily and together
All these ideas make it easier to find and quickly use data while you’re collaborating. By trying these techniques, you’ll help foster a culture of using data, which can lead to better decision making.
Next steps:
Embed report with the Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams
Update 2.24.2020: Added licensing information