Microsoft Power BI is a powerful reporting and analytics tool that businesses can leverage to get deep and insightful reporting. When paired with a popular Business Management ERP  Called Microsoft Dynamcis 365 Business Central, the resulting connection provides an abundance of reporting that companies can use to spot trends, view their critical information in dashboards, and help make better strategic decisions. The below tutorial on how to create your first Business Central Dashboard to Power BI will help you get on your way to experience this reporting and better understand vital information to help guide your business.

To connect Power BI to Dynamics 365 Business Central and create your first dashboard, follow these steps:

Open Power BI Desktop: If you haven’t already, download and install Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft website. Launch the application.

Get Data: In Power BI Desktop, click on  “Get Data from another source ” when you start up PowerBI Desktop Or “Get Data” from the Home tab in the ribbon menu.

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Choose Data Source: In the “Get Data” window, search for “Dynamics 365 Business Central” in the search bar or navigate to it in the list of available connectors. Click on it and then click “Connect”.

Authentication: You will be prompted to sign in. Enter your Business Central credentials.

Select Data: Once authenticated, you will be presented with a navigator window showing available tables and entities from your Business Central instance. Select the tables you want to import data from for your dashboard. You can select multiple tables if needed.

I selected CUSTOMERS for now.

Transform Data (Optional): You may need to clean and transform the data to suit your dashboard requirements. Power BI provides a range of tools for data cleaning and transformation. Click “Transform Data” to open the Power Query Editor.

Load Data: After transforming the data (if necessary), click “Close & Load” to import the data into Power BI.

Create Visualizations: Once the data is loaded into Power BI, you can start creating visualizations for your dashboard. Drag and drop fields from your dataset onto the report canvas to create charts, graphs, tables, etc.

Design Dashboard: Arrange your visualizations on the report canvas to create your dashboard layout. Customize the visualizations as needed by adjusting their properties from the formatting pane.

Save Dashboard: Once you’re satisfied with your dashboard, save your Power BI file (.pbix) to your desired location.

Publish to Power BI Service: If you want to share your dashboard online or collaborate with others, you can publish it to the Power BI Service. Click on “Publish” from the Home tab in Power BI Desktop, and follow the prompts to publish your dashboard to the Power BI Service and workspace of your chosing.

That’s it! You’ve now connected Power BI to Dynamics 365 Business Central and created your first dashboard. You can continue to refine and enhance your dashboard as needed.