Embedding Power BI Content

Access Power BI Content within Magento Platform

Users that have their Power BI accounts can access their content directly from Magento Platform.

Opening page Reports -> Power BI -> Reports will show list of reports user have access to.

Picture: Power BI Reports list inside Magento Platform

Clicking on the row in the list of reports will open report within Magento.

Picture: Opening Power BI report within Magento Platform

Opening page Reports -> Power BI -> Dashboards will show list of dashboards.

Picture: list of Power BI dashboards inside Magento Platform

Same as with reports, user can open dashboard by selecting the row in the list.

Enable and configure embedded content

Pages with Embedded Content

Embedded analytics can significantly improve the usability of statistical information by bringing the statistics to the place where it is needed.

Power BI Integration Extension may come with functionality that supports embedding of Power BI content to some of the pages inside Magento Platform. At the moment this includes the following pages (all in Magento Admin area):

• Question & Answer (QnA) section on Overview page.
• Product statistics tab on Product properties page
• Customer statistics tab on Customer properties page
• Order statistics tab on Order details page

Each embedded report will be described below.

In “AAD Token: User owns data” mode that will be described later in “Embedded Modes” section of this documentation, the embedded content will not be shown in case if the user did not connect Magento Platform to its Power BI Service account.

Question & Answer section

Question & Answer section is based on natural language processing features provided by Power BI. This will allow user to enter a question to a text filed and get answer to that question provided by Power BI. The Question & Answer embedded functionality at the moment can only take data from one dataset, though Microsoft have plans to extend this to more datasets.

Picture: embedded Question & Answer section inside Magento Platform

This is quite powerful features with very user friendly interface.

The quality of the answers may depend a lot on the underlying data modeling in the dataset. To get most benefit from Question & Answer section it is recommended to use Sales Cube Dataset.

Order statistics tab

Embedded report might be added to order details page in Magento Platform. This will allow opening separate repot for each order.

The embedding functionality expects the embedded report to have Order table with Order Id field and will filter data by this filed.

This functionality is compatible with Sales Cube Dataset. In particular, report template “SC Embedded Order Statistics” that comes with Sales Cube functionality might be used to be embedded to order statistics tab.

Picture: Embedded Order Statistics report on an order’s page

Product statistics tab

Embedded report might be added to product edit page in Magento Platform. This will allow opening separate repot for each product.

The embedding functionality expects the embedded report to have Products table with Product Id field and will filter data by this field.

This functionality is compatible with Sales Cube Dataset. In particular, report template “SC Embedded Product Statistics” that comes with Sales Cube functionality might be used to be embedded to product statistics tab.

Customer statistics tab

Embedded report might be added to customer details page in Magento Platform. This will allow opening separate repot for each customer.

The embedding functionality expects the embedded report to have Orders table with Customer Id field and will filter data by this field.

This functionality is compatible with Sales Cube Dataset. In particular, report template “SC Embedded Customer Statistics” that comes with Sales Cube functionality might be used to be embedded to customer statistics tab.

Embedding Modes

There are two embedding modes (types of tokens) for embedding the content supported by Power BI Integration Extension:

• AAD Token: User owns data – in this mode user who will get access to the embedded content needs to have an account in Power BI Service.
• Embed Token: App owns data – in this mode user who will get access to the embedded content does not need to have an account in Power BI Service, but the functionality requires purchasing Power BI Embedded capacity.

The suitable mode may depend on the amount of users who should get access to the embedded content. If the amount of users is less than 80 users, then it might be preferable to first option, if more then 100 – second option might become more cost efficient.

In the first option content should either be created by the user or be shared with him. Sharing the content would require to have Power BI Pro subscription for all users show want to share or access shared content inside Power BI. Second option requires Power BI Embedded capacity.

Let’s review all of the possibilities in details.

AAD Token with Power BI Free accounts

This is the option where there might be no need to pay any license fees for Power BI Service. But this is very inefficient and limited option. Power BI Free subscription is more intended to be used as a trial version of Power BI Service and is very limited.

First of all, the limitations relate to the capacity and slow data delivery:

• Max amount of rows in a table is limited by 10,000 rows (compared with 5,000,000 rows in Pro subscription)
• Max amount of rows sent to Power BI per hour per dataset is limited by 10,000 rows

Additionally, with Power BI Free subscription users cannot share content with each other. This means that each user should load his data to Power BI separately. More about this case can be read in “General concepts: Multiple users: Simplest multiuser use case: multiple independent users”.

AAD Token with Power BI Pro accounts

With Power BI Pro accounts users can enjoy fool flexibility of usage of Power BI Service. Limitations will be extended compared to free account to allow storing more data and sending it faster to Power BI Service.

Users can get access not only to embedded content, but also access reports and dashboards with Power BI Service or Power BI Mobile App, create and store their reports, share their reports, configure notifications and exchange their ideas with their colleagues through Power BI Service.

But each Power BI Pro license needs to be purchased from Microsoft and the more users there will be, the more expensive it becomes.

Embed Token: App owns data

This is a typical embedded use case and ideal for companies that have multiple users who will access embedded content without the need to have Power BI account.

The users will not be able to create and share reports. They will not get access to content in Power BI Service and will not access the reports through Power BI Mobile App.

This use case requires purchasing Power BI Embedded capacity from Microsoft.

Note: for development purpose Microsoft allows to use this kind of token with very limited capacity. This is useful for development and testing of this embedding mode.

Configuring the Embedded Content

Embedded content can be configured in Magneto Configuration (Stores -> Configuration in Magento 2 or System -> Configuration in Magento 1), section BIM Extensions -> Power BI Integration -> Power BI Embedded.

Picture: Power BI Embedded content configuration inside Magento Platform

Embedding Mode allows configuring the embedding mode that will be used for the embedded content. Read “Embedded Modes” section of this documentation for more information on the modes.

Enable QnA Section on Overview Page will add Question & Answer section on Magento Platform’s overview page (home page of Admin Panel).

QnA Workspace ID includes ID of the workspace from Power BI Service. This workspace should include a dataset that will be used for QnA. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the workspace inside Power BI Service.

QnA Dataset ID includes ID of the dataset from Power BI Service that will be used for the QnA section. The easiest way to get this value for a dataset is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the dataset inside Power BI Service.

Enable Statistics Tab on Product Page allows enabling on the statistics tab on products page in Magento Platform.

Product Statistics Workspace ID includes ID of the workspace from Power BI Service. This workspace should include a report that will be embedded to statistics tab on product edit page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the workspace inside Power BI Service.

Product Statistics Report ID includes ID of the report from Power BI Service that will be embedded to statistics tab on product edit page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the report inside Power BI Service.

Enable Statistics Tab on Order Page allows enabling on the statistics tab on order details in Magento Platform.

Order Statistics Workspace ID includes ID of the workspace from Power BI Service. This workspace should include a report that will be embedded to statistics tab on order details page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the workspace inside Power BI Service.

Order Statistics Report ID includes ID of the report from Power BI Service that will be embedded to statistics tab on order details page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the report inside Power BI Service.

Enable Statistics Tab on Customer Page allows enabling on the statistics tab on customer details in Magento Platform.

Customer Statistics Workspace ID includes ID of the workspace from Power BI Service. This workspace should include a report that will be embedded to statistics tab on customer details page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the workspace inside Power BI Service.

Customer Statistics Report ID includes ID of the report from Power BI Service that will be embedded to statistics tab on customer details page. The easiest way to find out this value is to copy this value from the URL after navigating to the report inside Power BI Service.