Enhancing Power BI Notifications with Microsoft Power Automate

Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization, but it has limited alerting capabilities. You can extend these alerts to notify other parties when certain conditions are met by integrating Power BI with Microsoft Power Automate. Microsoft Power Automate can take the basic alerting capability in Power BI and turn it into a dynamic, multi-step process that goes beyond simple notifications. Here’s how it works and what it enables:

What Are Power BI Alerts?

Power BI allows you to set up alerts on dashboards when key metrics or KPIs hit specified thresholds. For example, if a sales figure falls below a certain number, Power BI can trigger an alert. However, these alerts are typically limited to sending an email or a notification.

What You Need to Use Power BI Alerts

Power BI Service: The Power BI online portal is the only way to set up alerts. Neither the report server nor the desktop version contain them.

Visibility: Even if the dashboard is shared, alerts are only visible to users who set them up.

Data Types: Alerts can be set on gauge tiles or numbers, but they only work with numbers.?

Data Source: Alerts function exclusively with updated information from streaming datasets that are connected to a live data source.

Power BI Alert Use Cases?

Financial Monitoring: Keep an eye on the cash, expenses, debt, income, or ratios between these and the G/L balances.

Evaluation of Customers and Vendors: Keep an eye on the number of orders, total customer credit, total AP, and total AR.?

Operational Metrics: Receive notifications whenever there are backlogs in approvals, receipts, or shipments.

Goals and Milestones: When sales targets or other goals are achieved, notify teams.

Let's use this function now that we've covered important notes and its uses! Teams will be notified when a sales target is met using the example we are using.

How Power Automate Enhances These Alerts

Integrating Power BI alerts with Microsoft Power Automate allows you to elevate these alerts into advanced workflows. This integration enables the initiation of multiple actions across various applications in response to a single alert.

Key Enhancements Include

Multi-Channel Notifications: You can send SMS messages, push notifications, or messages to Microsoft Teams instead of just an email.?

Automated Procedures: These procedures can be used to start a procedure for approval, update a CRM record, or even log the alert in a SharePoint list.?

Conditional Workflows: Customize the response based on the details of the alert with conditional logic. Send a summary report, for instance, if a KPI is slightly off, and immediately notify senior management if it is significantly off.

Integration with Other Services: Leverage the wide range of connectors in Power Automate to integrate with databases, ERP systems, or other business applications, enabling a more holistic and automated response.

How to Set It Up

?1. Create Your Alert in Power BI: Set up your alert on a dashboard tile that reflects the metric you’re interested in monitoring.

?2. Build a Flow in Power Automate: Select "When a data-driven alert is triggered" as the trigger (available through the Power BI connector). Configure the trigger by linking it to the Power BI alert you’ve set up.

?3. Identify the Steps: Include at least one action that ought to take place when the alert is triggered. Examples of these actions might be:

• ?Sending an email or SMS.
• ?sending a message to a channel in Teams.
• ?putting the information about the alert into a spreadsheet or database.

?If the alert indicates a critical issue, initiate a multi-step approval procedure.?

4. Test and Monitor: Conduct tests to ensure that Power Automate's flow seamlessly carries out all of the intended actions when the conditions in Power BI are met.

Benefits to Your Organization

Improved Receptivity: Automated workflows can guarantee that the appropriate parties are informed and that corrective actions are taken right away.

Reduced Manual Intervention: Your team can concentrate on more strategic tasks by automating routine responses.

Greater Integration: Seamlessly connect insights from Power BI with other business tools, creating a more unified IT ecosystem.

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Configuring Power BI Alerts

1. Establish an Alert Rule

• Navigate to the dashboard for Power BI.?
• Select the ellipsis (…) on the numeric tile for which you wish to establish an alert.
• Create an alert rule by selecting "Manage alerts."
• Set the condition (such as greater than 700,000).

?Note the Refresh Frequency

• Your Power BI license determines how frequently your data are refreshed.
• Every 24 hours, the demonstration environments are updated.?
• Up to eight base licenses can be updated each day.
• Up to 48 times per day, pro licenses can be updated.

Integrating with Power Automate

1. Establish a New Flow

• Create a new flow by opening Power Automate.
• After searching for Power BI, select the alert template that has already been created, such as "Alert your team via email when Power BI data alert is triggered."

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2. Configure the Flow

• Check the credentials you have.?
• Enter the alert you wish to monitor (for instance, sales by customers).
• Specify the recipients of the email alert.
• Change the subject line, title, and content of the email.?
• Keep the flow.

3. Triggering the Alert

• Power Automate will send an email notification when the alert condition is met.
• The name of the dashboard, the current value, and the threshold will all be included in the email.

You will receive the following information in an email notification whenever the alert is triggered:?

Dashboard Name: The name of the dashboard where the alert was set is the dashboard name.?

Current value: The current value that prompted the alert is the current value.?

Threshold: The value established for triggering the alert.

The flows you have created can be seen in the Power BI column's My Flows area.

Using Power Automate, you can effectively expand the alert notifications in Power BI, ensuring that important data-driven alerts reach the right people in your organization.?

To do this, follow these steps. Contact ArcherPoint if you have any inquiries regarding the BI platform or the various reporting options. to understand Power BI and Power Automate better. You can also check out the comprehensive Microsoft Power BI documentation page for more details.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by integrating Microsoft Power BI alerts with broader business processes and communication channels, Microsoft Power Automate not only enhances the alerting mechanism but also contributes to the generation of actionable outcomes.