Very Important: - In the Estimator Hosted Environment, Power BI can ONLY be used with Power BI Online and not the Desktop version of Power BI. This is due to security-related restrictions when connecting to an Azure SQL database and restricted access to the Hosted SQL Server environment.
Note: The free version of Power BI cannot be used with the Hosted Environment setup because a Pro account is required to publish the Dashboard to a Company's workspace.
More information about Power BI Licensing is here: Power BI service per-user and capacity-based licenses
Beck Tech provides Hosted clients with pre-configured report files for use with Power BI. Clients need to publish these files to their Power BI workspace. Here are the steps to set up your Power BI file:
How to Publish Your Power BI File
- You need to have access to a shared workspace.
- Send a request to Beck Tech Support for your Power BI files. You will be sent one or more pre-configured files.
- Upload these file/s to your shared workspace (publishing can only be done with a Power BI Pro account or higher).
- Click on Workspaces.
- Click on the Workspace you created in Step 1 of this article.
- Click 'Upload'.
- Browse to the location where you save the files, highlight them and click Open.
- Set up a Refresh schedule using the credentials provided in the same email as your Power BI Files from Beck Tech Support
5. We have a new workflow on how to show the Yearly cost index for projects, which can be found in this article.
Note: If you are experiencing an issue with the map view, please check out this article:
Power BI Demo and Map View Support
The following link contains a demo on how to use the Dashboard and Cost Index files - Dashboard walkthrough.
Accessing the Database To See the Tables and Views
The read-only permission for the Power Bi file allows you to access the database as well. This will require getting your IP whitelisted. This process is ONLY for a selected number of users as we cannot whitelist the entire organization, so determine who will need to access that data.
To connect to the database using SSMS, follow the steps below:
1. Enter the server name and credentials that were provided. The server name and database can also be found in the Power BI file
2. Click the Options tab and Enter the database name and click Connect
Updating Credentials In Power BI Desktop for the Power Query Editor
If you have been whitelisted as detailed above, you will also have the ability to open the .pbix file in Power BI Desktop and make edits in the Power Query Editor. Here, you may be prompted to enter credentials. Here are the steps to do so:
1. Open the .pbix file in Power BI Desktop and click on click on the 'Transform Data' button on the top Ribbon.
2. The Power Query Editor will open and you will see a prompt: "Please specify how to connect'.
3. Click the 'Edit Credentials' button to reach the below screen. Select 'Database' on the left menu, Input the username and password you were issued with your pbix file. Lastly, in the Level at the bottom, the option that shows both the server AND your database name (eg. servername.database.windows.net;your_destinidata_ database_name_destinidata).
4. Click 'Connect'.