How to connect your Power BI Solutions report to your Learn365 data

Connect your Power BI report to your Learn365 data

To enable your Power BI Solution report to retrieve and display your data, you'll need to complete a few configuration steps. The following steps typically take 10 minutes to complete.

Open the report file

1. In File Explorer on your computer, navigate to the location of your report file.

2. Double-click the report file to open it in Power BI Desktop.

Clear existing API permissions and apply new API key

1. On the Home tab in Power BI Desktop, select Transform data > Data source settings from the Queries group to open the Data source settings dialog.

2. Ensure the Data sources in current file radio button is selected.

3. Click the Clear Permissions drop-down menu and select Clear All Permissions.

4. Click on the Delete button from the Clear Permissions dialog window.

5. Select Close on the Data source settings dialog.

6. Select the Refresh icon from the Queries group.

7. Select Basic in the left-hand menu then enter API as your username and your API key as the password. For information on how to get your API key, see this article.

8. Click on the Connect button to refresh your LMS data information.

Edit the parameters

Our Power BI solution reports use a RangeStart and RangeEnd parameter to allow you to effectively refresh your reports by including only the most relevant enrollment records. 

In the RangeEnd box, you will want to make sure you enter a date in the future to ensure you don’t miss any current data. Use the format M/d/yyyy HH:mm:ss AM/PM. 

In the RangeStart box, input the earliest date that a desired enrollment record would have been created in the Learn365 database for your tenant. Use the same format as the RangeEnd.” 

1. On the Home tab in Power BI Desktop, select Transform data > Edit parameters from the Queries section to open the Edit Parameters dialog.

2. Enter Start and End dates for your date range parameters.

3. Click the OK button to apply your date range information.

4. To refresh your Power BI data, you will need to click on the Apply button in the upper section of report. 

5. Your report data will start to load, and you will be prompted to enter a User name and your API key in the Password field.

6. Click the Connect button to finalize the connection to your Learn365 data.

Customize your visuals

Custom visuals in Power BI provide the flexibility to create visual representations that are tailored specifically to your data and analysis goals. They enable you to go beyond the limitations of the built-in visuals and create visualizations that align perfectly with your organization’s brand, style, and requirements.

1. Identify the type of data you want to visualize and select the appropriate chart type from the Visualizations panel on the right-hand side of the screen.

2. Drag and drop your data from the Fields panel on the right-hand side of the screen into the appropriate areas of the chart or graph, such as values, axes, legend, etc.

3. Configure the chart properties, such as colors, labels, titles, filters, etc. by applying the relevant formatting. For more information, see this Microsoft article.

4. Use design best practices to improve the readability of the chart, such as choosing an appropriate scale, avoiding clutter, highlighting important data points, etc.

5. Save and publish your report to share your custom visual with others. For more information, see this Microsoft article.

Incremental Refresh Guidelines for Power BI Service

The Enrollments and Certificates tables in the Power BI starter kit report are designed to work seamlessly with the Incremental Refresh feature of Power BI Service. If you plan to publish to Power BI Service, please refer to the “Define policy” section of this article from Microsoft Learn for guidance. Configure incremental refresh for Power BI semantic models - Power BI | Microsoft Learn(opens in a new tab)

Before publishing, ensure that you apply your desired policy to the Enrollments and Certificates tables.

Additional resources

If you want to learn more about Power BI and how to use its features, there are many resources available online, including:

• An overview of the Power BI training options, such as courses, webinars, documentation, samples, and more. For more information, see this Microsoft article.
• Learning paths and modules for Power BI, covering topics such as data visualization, data analysis, data preparation, and more. For more information, see this Microsoft article.