Dynamics GP & Power BI – Power BI on your GP Home Screen

This blog post is part of a series of blogs designed to help a business understand the interaction between Dynamics GP and Power BI, how to setup Power BI with Dynamics GP and what some of the options are for this functionality. This write up was done using Dynamics GP 2018.
To view the full list of the series, click here.
How to connect Power BI to GP Home Screen

Dynamics GP can display reports that are pinned to a dashboard in Power BI. After following these instructions, if you do not see any available reports, be sure to add them to a Dashboard in Power BI. I created a Dashboard called GP PBI (in Power BI) and only pinned the reports that I wanted to optionally display in Dynamics GP.

Step 1: Obtain Client ID

If you look at Tools/Setup/System/Reporting Tools Setup, and click on “Power BI”, you will see that a Client ID is needed before integrating Power BI into your GP system.
In order to connect Dynamics GP to Power BI, Dynamics GP needs to be registered as an approved application on your Power BI account. This is done using the Power BI Registration Tool.
IMPORTANT! If you click the link in the setup window in GP, you will be taken to a website that errors:

If you follow the link above, you will get this error: 404 Error – Sorry this document can’t be found.
Well, that’s not good! 🙂 The correct link to use is https://dev.powerbi.com/apps
Once you visit the link (and sign in to Power BI), you will need to create a client ID.
Below is a screenshot of my registration. First, fill in the App name – I called mine DYNGP18. Then select the App type – I am doing this for a local install so I chose Native App – the other option is Server-Side Web App.
The redirect URL is https://login.live.com/oauth20_desktop.srf – This is the URL needed to pop up the Power BI login page.
In the next area, you are going to need to choose API’s that this App can access. In mine, I chose them all, just to make it easy. 🙂
Lastly, Choose Register App – this will give you the client ID – copy the client ID as you will need it for Step 2. Did you close this window without capturing the Client ID? Check out this write-up on how to view the apps approved with your account.

Step 2: Connect GP to Power BI using Client ID

Now that we created a Client ID, we need to put it in the Dynamics GP setup window: Tools/Setup/System/Reporting Tools Setup – once this is populated, hit OK.

After hitting OK, you will be prompted to sign into Power BI. If you are not prompted to login, and instead, get an error

And then Authorize the API’s we selected during the registration process

Step 3: Configure your GP Home Screen

Now that we have the client ID created and setup in Dynamics GP, it’s time to go to our home screen and choose ‘customize this window’ in the upper right-hand corner.
This will open up the Customize Home Page Window. Notice that Power BI is now available. The ‘Show All’ checkbox (my preference) separates each report into their own content box on the home screen – if you want them all grouped into one content box, leave this unchecked. Click the blue arrow to the right of Power BI.

This opens up the Power BI Details window. Here you will see your dashboard and the list of reports that you pinned to the dashboard. Simply click each report you want shown on your desktop and click ‘Insert’.

When you have completed moving the appropriate reports to the right panel, click OK to close out this window and then close the Customize Home Screen window. You should now be back at your home screen and see your Power BI content.

And there you have it! Look at those two Power BI reports right on my home screen! AWESOME!!!
To learn more about “Dynamics GP & Power BI” continue reading this series by clicking here.
To continue to the next blog in this series, How to see Apps registered to your account
Thanks for reading!
Shawn